Force Windows 7 to Recognize Firefox as the Default Web Browser
August 13, 2010 Computer Tips And Tricks
We all know that Firefox is very popular but that does not mean that people aren’t still making use of Internet Explorer.
Many people are making use of Windows 7. Now the problem comes in because it is very challenging for Windows 7 to understand that Firefox is your browser of choice on your computer system.
Many people experience vast problems when it comes to setting up Firefox as their browser of choice. What seems common is that once you restart your machine it goes back to Internet Explorer being your browser of choice, this seems to irritate many people. This is why I want to teach you all how to make Windows 7 actually accept Firefox as the default browser.
Set Firefox as Default Browser
If you always need to reset your machine to make Firefox your default browser then this may trick your machine in denying access to Internet Explorer. This is a last resist and if it doesn’t work then you could consider uninstalling IE all together.
You may want to log in to Windows 7 with the use of an account which contains admin privileges. You can click on start and then type default into the search programs and files search box.
Next Press Enter and Windows 7 will open up the Default Programs options window. Click on the link titled Set Program Access and Computer Defaults.
In the Computer Defaults option window, click on the Custom option and Windows 7 will show you a list of options for program defaults.
Look for a set of options titled Choose a Default Web Browser. Normally, you should have the Use My Current Web Browser option chosen. This means that the browsers will decide using their own options which one is the default browser. Here, you will override the options of the browsers themselves and force Windows 7 to accept Firefox as the default browser at the administrative level.
Click the option titled Mozilla Firefox and makes sure the option next to it titled Enable Access to this Program is checked. Now uncheck the option next to Internet Explorer titled Enable Access to this Program. This will force Windows 7 to ignore whether or not IE is set as the default browser at the software level.
Click OK, restart your computer, and see which browser Windows 7 recognizes as the default. You may want to run through the steps above again just to make sure that the options you chose are still the same.
At worst, you may have to uninstall IE in order to avoid having it set as the default web browser on your computer. At best, this trick will work but you will have to run through the steps above to undo this change should you want to start using IE again.
This may mean that your pc could operate as if IE wasn’t installed on the machine. The trick may be to only do this as a last resort. I wish you the best of luck in this mission and hope that it makes your computer life way easier.
