1796 If you're an Opera fan like I am, I hope you took advantage of Opera's one-day tenth-birthday license giveaway on Tuesday, August 30th. Actually, I never found the little ads at the top of the screen in the ad-supported version of Opera any real hardship or even an annoyance, but losing them with the registered version does give me a bit more window room on my cramped 1024 x 768 screen.

Opera is a great browser, but it's not the main topic of this column, which is how to specify Opera, or the browser of your choice that isn't Apple Safari, as your default Web-surfing application - That is, the one that opens when you click a link in email or in some other program.

Safari is an excellent browser too, so you may be entirely happy leaving it as your default, but there is an embarrassment of riches in OS X browser programs these days. For a roundup comparison, see this recent Moore's Views & Reviews column.
http://www.applelinks.com/p5/index.php/more/rating_nine_os_x_browsers1/

Back in OS 9 days, there was an Internet control panel in which you could (still can if you're running OS 9) set your choice of default Web browser, but since the arrival of Apple Safari and Apple's.Mac online service, the Internet control/preference panel is gone and replaced with the .Mac System Preferences panel, which no longer contains default configuration options for browser or email client.

Instead, you must actually start up Safari in order to switch to another browser and as are preferred default, and the same applies to the OS X Mail app. for setting your default email application. Just start up either of the Apple programs, select Preferences from the Application Menu, click the General tab, and use the Default Web Browser or Default Email Program popup menu.

Or, if you would like to have more convenient control over these and other Internet-related settings, there is a freeware utility called RCDefaultApp that will do the task for you very nicely.

RCDefaultApp is a Mac OS X 10.2 or higher preference pane that allows a user to set the default application used for various URL schemes, file extensions, file types, and MIME types. MacOS X uses the extension and file type settings to choose the application when opening a file in Finder, while Safari and other applications use the URL and MIME type settings at other times for content not related to a file (such as an unknown URL protocol, or a media stream).

The Finder's Get Info panel can be used to set the default application for file extensions and file types, but it's not intuitive. Apple's Internet preference pane in MacOS X 10.0 through 10.2 (Jaguar) allowed you to set the Web and Email applications, but no other URL handlers. In MacOS X 10.3 (Panther), these settings have moved to Safari's and Mail's preferences -- meaning you have to run those applications if you want to choose to not use them. RCDefaultApp allows the setting of all of this information, and ties everything together in one preference pane.

RCDefaultApp also allows entries to be disabled, such as URL schemes that have security issues

RCDefaultApp is freeware

For more information, visit:
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/


Charles W. Moore

Tags: Blogs ï Hands On Mac ï OSX Odyssey ï

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