zlacker

Google does something like this with the GMail app on iPhone— you click links and instead of just opening Safari, it pops up a "which browser to use" selector modal, which is really just an advertisement for you to install Chrome.

>>mikepu+(OP)
Google Chat on Windows as well. Even if it is “installed as an app”, it does not act like one, and always opens links in Chrome. I understand that the “app” in this case is a Chrome wrapper, but it at least should respect system defaults.

>>mikepu+(OP)
Same with Google Maps. It’s really annoying.

>>mikepu+(OP)
Ditto for Google Maps. The choices, in order, are:

- Chrome

- Google (?)

- Safari

- Default browser app

I don't know what "google" is, but I don't even have chrome installed. If I click it, it sends me to the app store.

>>mikepu+(OP)
Then it doesn’t open safari! It opens a safari web view inside the chrome app, which has a whole different set of local settings and cookies, and you have to re log into everything.

>>yakubi+i2
One of the reasons I use apple maps, despite apple making it worse over the years

>>mikepu+(OP)
This is a changeable setting (though obviously it sucks that you have to make a choice to use your default browser).

Hamburger > Settings > Default Apps (in "General" at the bottom)

>>darren+l6
It's such an obvious dark pattern; I'm really surprised Apple accepts this from Google, but I expect there's some mutually assured destruction horse-trading that goes on behind the scenes with players this large.

>>yaky+i1
PWAs in Edge have the same issue -- links clicked inside the PWA always open in Edge. This is especially annoying because certain apps in the Windows store (like Snapchat) are really just Edge PWAs.

FirefoxPWA gets it right and opens in the default browser (but it is a bit janky for other reasons).

>>mikepu+(OP)
I hate that menu so much. It even shows chrome and google search app in the menu when they aren’t installed. They do the same thing with maps links (open in maps or safari) if you don’t have maps installed.

>>yakubi+i2
I disabled Chrome on my Samsung device and links from Google Maps always open in my Brave browser which is the default I've set

>>mikepu+(OP)
This is what I want personally.

I use different browsers for different things: let me fucking chose which browser to use.

I am currently wondering how easy it would be to build a "shim browser" that you can set as default but does not actually open the page, it only list the urls apps tried to open and lets you copy them to whichever browser you prefer.

>>mikepu+37
Since it's still safari under the hood running on their OS they probably get the data they want anyway. Apple uses the same and worse dark patterns themselves, they used to filter out non Apple devices from bluetooth discovery.

>>afiori+oj
Seems like a dark pattern. Should have a "Choose this everytime" option, and you and I are both happy

>>afiori+oj
I'm currently experimenting with "link eye" from FDroid on Android. There's also [finicky](https://github.com/johnste/finicky) for MacOS.

>>darren+l6
Even with this setting enabled (for Safari), it still asks me every week or two where I want to open the link and tries to get me to download Chrome. I doubt they do this if you have Chrome enabled.

>>hacker+wm
Not really, because sometime default settings are weird and I would also want a "Forget all associations".

My point is broader than browsers: if an app wants to redirect me to another app I want a modal where I can select an alternative app and cancel the "redirect".

>>afiori+oj
You're an extremely niche use case... most people do not use multiple browsers.

>>hacker+wm
It does.

>>mikepu+(OP)
I also can’t copy links from buttons without it opening a preview which causes one time links to break.

>>nicksp+Xn
Do you know if there is something similar for windows?

>>afiori+oj
I think a key difference here is that the prompt is not asking you to choose between the browsers you’ve already installed, it’s asking you if you want to launch chrome or safari, and if you don’t have chrome it’s an install button to the App Store. It’s essentially just an ad, presented like a selection UI.

Properly implemented such prompts would be great though. Someone else in the thread mentioned how location search results on mobile Safari always launch Apple Maps - it would be great to have the option to choose from whatever I have installed.

>>afiori+io
I'm okay being prompted when I have more than one app of the same type.

I'm not okay being prompted to install an additional app when I already have one that can handle the link. This is advertisement spam and it's disingenuous to claim Google does that to give you choice.

>>texuf+K3
Well, at least the latest webview API is perfect sandbox at least on the paper. And no code injection. But I have doubts that Google uses it….

>>vladva+J2
> I don't know what "google" is

It's a bare-minimum version of chromium that comes with Android. It's not chrome either.

>>darren+l6
Every time I have changed to open in Safari by default, Gmail magically forgets this a week or two later.

>>tredre+eE
I agree with this

>>afiori+oj
Browser Tamer[1] registers itself as the URL handler on Windows, and allows you to configure based on domain name which browser to open the link in. [it probably won't override the kind of hack in this article where Outlook is coupled directly to Edge].

[1] https://www.aloneguid.uk/projects/bt

>>dbbk+aq
If not multiple browsers many use different profiles, and then you would want to chose the appropriate profile

>>mustac+cC
I agree, I did not consider this aspect