Firefox ignores my system settings for which apps should open certain URL patterns
When I click on some links in Firefox, instead of opening in the apps that they should according to the system settings on my phones and tablets, Firefox takes over and opens them in the browser.
An easy example of this is links to apps in the Google Play Store. In my system settings, I have the Play Store app set as the default app to open any links that conform to Play Store links (i.e. anything matching https://play.google.com/...., which the Play Store app has declared that it can open.
However, Firefox overrides my Android settings and opens the page in Firefox, regardless.
The Play Store is an annoying example, but I can work around it once I've finished swearing under my breath because I'd forgotten it wouldn't work properly (once it's open in the browser, I can share the link to the Play Store app to open it there - but it's an unnecessary step). However, there are other apps that have declared their ability to open certain URL patterns - and have been set as the default apps to do so for those URLs - but which don't accept URLs as a share intent, so I can't just share the page with them to open the link in the app that should have opened it anyway. The only way I can do this is to open the page in a different browser and click on the link from there, when my settings are acknowledged instead of ignored.
Please could you fix Firefox so that it works the way all Android apps SHOULD work, and honours my preferences for which apps should open certain URLs, just as other browsers do.
Thanks Julie
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Hi Julie, Urls in that format will open in the defualt app. In order to open it with the app market:// is required in the front of the url:
Julie in order to better investigate as well, how did you set the default app for play links to open in the Google play app?
Firefox for Android is a web browser. As long as the links are http/https/ftp Firefox will navigate to them. On sites that have apps installed they can list the intent on their site and we will display an Android icon in the address bar. You can tap that button to take you to the installed app.
guigs2 said
Julie in order to better investigate as well, how did you set the default app for play links to open in the Google play app?
The same way that you set any app to be the default for a particular action: After installing an app that can open any particular URL pattern, when you click on a matching link for the first time (from any email client, browser, messenger, or any other app for that matter), Android prompts the user to select which of the apps who have said they're capable of opening that URL pattern it should use (see attached screenshots).
Choose the app you want Android to use to open URLs matching that pattern, and select Always.
NB: The screenshots were taken after uninstalling Firefox from my phone, so that nothing's interfering with Apps offering to open their own links.
All Android apps can list, in their manifest, the patterns of URLs that they can open.
- the Facebook app will offer to open links to facebook pages;
- the Android Central app will offer to open links to web pages on its own site;
- the YouTube app will offer open YouTube video links;
- the Play Store app will offer to open links to items listed in the Play Store;
- an RSS reader or Podcatcher will offer to open URLs that look like RSS feeds.
The list goes on and on.
It is then the USER, not the calling app who decides which app Android should use to open links that match that particular pattern. If I tell Android that I ALWAYS want it to use the Play Store to open links that match the pattern that the Play Store app recognises as Play Store links, I expect that to happen. If I click on a link to a Play Store app in the Chrome browser, that's exactly what does happen. If I click on exactly the same link on exactly the same page in Firefox, it's opened within Firefox, not by the Play Store app. But, the Play Store is just ONE easy to reproduce example.
Actually, it's worse than that. I don't even have to be in Firefox when I click on a link that Firefox hijacks.
Example: My partner and I have been programming some new NFC tags this weekend, and he's programmed his with a link to his Facebook page. If I have Firefox installed on my phone and tap on the tag, it attempts to open the link in Firefox (and fails, because I'm not logged into FB in my browser). If I uninstall Firefox, tapping the tag opens the link in the FB app, as I would expect, because I already had the Facebook app set as the default to open its own links.
The irony is that (because of other issues that I won't go into for fear of confusing this issue), I haven't even set Firefox as my default BROWSER. (Sometimes I want to be able certain links in Chrome, and I find it easier to tell Android "Just once" whenever I open a link in whichever browser I want to use on that particular occasion.)
I understand that some browser code may be needed to actually navigate to the URL and pass the link to the ultimate destination app, but it should then hand control to the app that the USER has chosen as their default app for that type of URL.
Instead, Firefox is hijacking some links instead of allowing Android to select the correct app to open them, according to my preferences as the user. I've been complaining to authors of a number of apps because they don't open their own data, only to discover that they would do, if only Firefox wasn't getting in the way.
I really like Firefox for Android, just as I really like Firefox for Windows, but at the moment I've had to uninstall it because apps on my phone don't open their own URLs when I expect them to, making life unnecessarily difficult. I'd love to go back to using it, but not until it stops hijacking links that other apps should be opening.
Julie BSc Computing, and support engineer for BeyondPod for Android.
I understand, thank you for the explanation. If I have a default app selected or not, all installed browsers are an option as well.
If I clear the defaults of the Firefox for Android app, all play links open in the play store. However this will clear defaults to other places Firefox has been selected as the default.
If you clear the defaults does Firefox 37.0.1 still show up as an option in other places?