How to open in default browser in C#

Question

I am designing a small C# application and there is a web browser in it. I currently have all of my defaults on my computer say google chrome is my default browser, yet when I click a link in my application to open in a new window, it opens internet explorer. Is there any way to make these links open in the default browser instead? Or is there something wrong on my computer?

My problem is that I have a webbrowser in the application, so say you go to google and type in "stack overflow" and right click the first link and click "Open in new window" it opens in IE instead of Chrome. Is this something I have coded improperly, or is there a setting not correct on my computer

===EDIT===

This is really annoying. I am already aware that the browser is IE, but I had it working fine before. When I clicked a link it opened in chrome. I was using sharp develop to make the application at that time because I could not get c# express to start up. I did a fresh windows install and since I wasn't too far along in my application, I decided to start over, and now I am having this problem. That is why I am not sure if it is my computer or not. Why would IE start up the whole browser when a link is clicked rather than simply opening the new link in the default browser?

Answer 1

You can just write

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("http://google.com");

EDIT: The WebBrowser control is an embedded copy of IE.
Therefore, any links inside of it will open in IE.

To change this behavior, you can handle the Navigating event.

Answer 2

public static void GoToSite(string url)
{
     System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(url);
}

that should solve your problem

Answer 3

For those finding this question in dotnet core. I found a solution here

Code:

private void OpenUrl(string url)
{
    try
    {
        Process.Start(url);
    }
    catch
    {
        // hack because of this: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/10361
        if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Windows))
        {
            url = url.Replace("&", "^&");
            Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo("cmd", $"/c start {url}") { CreateNoWindow = true });
        }
        else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Linux))
        {
            Process.Start("xdg-open", url);
        }
        else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.OSX))
        {
            Process.Start("open", url);
        }
        else
        {
            throw;
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

Did you try Processas mentioned here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/system.diagnostics.process.aspx?

You could use

Process myProcess = new Process();

try
{
    // true is the default, but it is important not to set it to false
    myProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true; 
    myProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "http://some.domain.tld/bla";
    myProcess.Start();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}

Answer 5

Take a look at the GeckoFX control.

GeckoFX is an open-source component which makes it easy to embed Mozilla Gecko (Firefox) into any .NET Windows Forms application. Written in clean, fully commented C#, GeckoFX is the perfect replacement for the default Internet Explorer-based WebBrowser control.

Answer 6

Try this , old school way ;)

public static void openit(string x)
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("cmd", "/C start" + " " + x);
    }

using : openit("www.google.com");

Answer 7

This opened the default for me:

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(e.LinkText.ToString());

Answer 8

In UWP:

await Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(new Uri("http://google.com"));

Answer 9

Open dynamically

string addres= "Print/" + Id + ".htm";
           System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, addres));

Answer 10

update the registry with current version of explorer
@"Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION"

public enum BrowserEmulationVersion
{
    Default = 0,
    Version7 = 7000,
    Version8 = 8000,
    Version8Standards = 8888,
    Version9 = 9000,
    Version9Standards = 9999,
    Version10 = 10000,
    Version10Standards = 10001,
    Version11 = 11000,
    Version11Edge = 11001
}

key.SetValue(programName, (int)browserEmulationVersion, RegistryValueKind.DWord);

Answer 11

dotnet core throws an error if we use Process.Start(URL). The following code will work in dotnet core. You can add any browser instead of Chrome.

var processes = Process.GetProcessesByName("Chrome");
var path  = processes.FirstOrDefault()?.MainModule?.FileName;
Process.Start(path,  url);