About

Automatically choosing web-browser depends on environment context rules.

Features

• suckless solution with no redundant dependencies
• fast single binary
• simple rule engine with custom interpretable DSL
• cross-platform

Configuration

Example

work:=firefox -p job {}:url.regex='.*jira.*'

work:app.class=Slack # Open all jira links from slack with job firefox profile
work:app.class=org.telegram.desktop # Open all links from the telegram app using Isolated firefox container

# Default fallback
firefox {}:fallback

Other examples can be found in examples folder

Configuration syntax

The application just evaluates configuration rules 1 by 1 and applies url to a first matched command. Syntax can be described as:

<browser_command>:<matcher_knd>.<prop_name>=<prop_value>[;<matcher_knd>.<prop_name>=<prop_value>]

Browser command is a sequence of words, divided by spaces. The first word is an executable name and the others are arguments. {} char sequence will be replaced with a clicked URL.

You can escape spaces or other non-word characters can be escaped by a single-quote string.

To avoid repeating of same browser command you can user assignment syntax command_name:=your command {} for further use.

Matchers

fallback

This matcher always succeeds. Use it at the end of a configuration to specify the default browser.

app

Matches by source application.

Currently supported desktop environments: hyprland, gnome, sway, macos.

Hyprland/Sway/Gnome Properties:

• title: match by source window title with regex
• class: match by window class

MacOS Properties:

• display_name - match by app display name (ex: Slack)
• bundle_id - match by App Bundle ID (ex: com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap)
• bundle_path - match by App Bundle path (ex: /Applications/Slack.app)
• executable_path - match by app executable path (ex: /Applications/Slack.app/Contents/MacOS/Slack)

url

Match by a clicked URL.

Properties:

• host: match URL by host
• scheme: match URL by scheme
• regex: match full URL by regex

Setup

Linux

Gnome

Due to stupidity of Gonme shell interface there is no legal way to recieve focused winow for Gnome with wayland: https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/pneza1/gdbus_call_for_moving_windows_not_working_in/

To be able to use the app matcher, please install the extenions, that exposes currently focused window via dbus interface: https://github.com/flexagoon/focused-window-dbus

Prebuilt packages

You can find .rpm, .deb, .apk and .zst packages on the release page.

Linux manual

Clone the repository and run, you can find a result binary in the out directory.

make build-linux

Create config at ~/.config/autobrowser.config. Then add the following .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications/ and set it as the default browser. Change paths for your setup if needed.

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Network;WebBrowser
Exec=~/go/bin/autobrowser -config ~/.config/autobrowser.config -url %u
Icon=browser
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https
Name=Autobrowser: select browser by contextual rules
Terminal=false
Type=Application

Nix flakes

Actual flakes provides overlay (overlays.default) and module for home-manager (autobrowser.homeModules.default).

Example of home-manager module configuration:

{
  inputs,
  ...
}: {
  programs.autobrowser = {
    package = inputs.autobrowser.packages.x86_64-linux.default;
    enable = true;
    variables = {
      work = "firefox 'ext+container:name=Work&url={}'";
      home = "firefox {}";
    };
    rules = [
      "work:app.class=Slack"
      "work:app.class=org.telegram.desktop;app.title='.*Work related group name.*'"
    ];
    default = "home";
  };
}

Acknowledgements

• b-r-o-w-s-e project and related article: great example of handling URLs with Golang on macOS
• Finicky project: inspiration for Autobrowser, good example of handling more complex URL events