How to change the default browser used by jupyter notebook in windows

Question

I'm on a windows machine without admin right and I would like to run jupyter on chrome, while the default browser is another.

I have a local installation of the Anaconda distribution and my first option to start jupyter would be through the Anaconda Navigator, but maybe I have to do something else. Because it is a local installation the command line jupyter notebook produces no results.

When I paste the url address in the default browser I have (something like http://localhost:8892/notebooks/Home/Exercices/Testing1.ipynb the chrome page asks me for a password or token. I have no password and I do not know what a token is.

Is there a way to change the browser of the Anaconda Navigator? or how can I start jupyter with Chrome?

Answer 1

Thanks to @Darthbith and this post How to change the default browser used by the ipython/jupyter notebook in Linux? I was able to figure it out:

Step 1: To open Anaconda Prompt from the Start Menu and type

jupyter notebook --generate-config

This will generate the file ~/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py

Step 2: Edit this file and change the following line (chrome is also is also in a local installation)

c.NotebookApp.browser = u'C:/Home/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %s'

Answer 2

In Windows, write in cmd/ Anaconda Prompt:

jupyter notebook --generate-config

The jupyter_notebook_config.py file generated is situated in "C:\Users\YourName\.jupyter\" folder.

Open it using a text editor and change #c.NotebookApp.browser = '' to

import webbrowser
webbrowser.register('chrome', None, webbrowser.GenericBrowser(u'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe'))
c.NotebookApp.browser = 'chrome'

and save the file.

Now execute the jupyter-notebook command and the set browser will be used.

Answer 3

As far as I know, there's no way to change the default browser that opens. However, you can find the token for the Notebook server by opening Anaconda Prompt from the Start Menu and typing

jupyter notebook list

This will give you a URL with the token that you can copy/paste into any other browser. The output of the list command looks like

Currently running servers:
http://localhost:8888/?token=41429d3dcf554d0dde69498aac0950654a590664ba02b3cd :: /path/to/home/folder

So you can either type http://localhost:8888 into the browser and then copy/paste the token into the field, or just copy/paste the whole URL with the token.

Answer 4

I don't know the precise details for Windows, but this is how to set the default browser on a Mac:

jupyter notebook --generate-config

This creates a file jupyter_notebook_config.py in ~/.jupyter. Edit the line

#c.NotebookApp.browser = ''

On a Mac I set it to:

c.NotebookApp.browser = u'/Applications/Gooogle\ Chrome.app %s'

You just need to figure out how to point it to Chrome on Windows.

Answer 5

The following also works for me. I give it a full path to chrome, plus %s at the end.

jupyter notebook --browser='C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %s'

If chrome is in the PATH environment variable, the following might work too.

jupyter notebook --browser=chrome

Answer 6

I'd like to offer a little more information about what to put in your jupyter_notebook_config.py file than is included in any of the other answers. jupyter is using python's webrowser module to launch the browser by passing the value for c.NotebookApp.browser to the webbrowser.get(using=None) function. If no value is specified, the function selects the user's default browser. If you do specify a value here, it can be interpreted in one of two ways, depending on whether or not the value you specified ends with the characters %s.

If the string does not contain the characters %s it is interpreted as a browser name and the module checks if it has a browser registered with that name (see the python documentation for which browsers are registered by default). This is why Abhirup Das's answer works, first the webbrowser module is imported

import webbrowser

the chrome browser is registered with the module

webbrowser.register('chrome', None, webbrowser.GenericBrowser(u'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe'))

and finally, the jupyter server is fed the browser name

c.NotebookApp.browser = 'chrome'

This browser registration does not persist, so the process must be repeated every time the server is launched.

Alternatively, if the string does contain the characters %s, it is interpreted as a literal browser command. Since this question is about how to run the browser on Windows, the browser command will probably contain backslashes. The backslash is used in python string literals to escape any characters that otherwise have any special meaning (e.g., to include a quote or double quote inside the string literal). Any backslashes in the browser command need to be be escaped or replaced. The easiest way is to replace the backslashes in the command with foward slashes, e.g.,

'C:/Home/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %s'

rather than

'C:\Home\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe %s'

I for the life of me couldn't get unicode/raw string commands or commands where I escaped each backslash with an extra backslash to work, so replacing the backslashes with forward slashes may be the only option. I verified that the strings I tried all worked in python, so the only way to be sure would be to look at the jupyter source code.

Anyway, since registering a browser with the module does not persist, if your browser isn't already registered by default, it is probably best to use a literal browser command with the backslashes replaced with forward slashes.

Answer 7

You don't need to change anything in the jupyter_notebook_config file. check whether your default web browser(if it's chrome) or reset and again choose as a web browser(chrome for me)as a default browser. it worked for me.

Answer 8

On Mac this works:

1) Generate a config file from within your environment:

jupyter notebook --generate-config

This will place jupyter_notebook_config.py in ~/.jupyter.

2) Modify the following line in jupyter_notebook_config.py:

c.NotebookApp.browser = 'open -a /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app %s'

Answer 9

The explanations above didn't work for me, I guess, I mistyped something. Actually it was easier for me to change default browser to Chrome and then Jupiter automatically starts in Chrome after next launch. (Search Windows - change default browser).

Answer 10

Jupyter looks for the BROWSER environment variable when choosing which browser to launch.

I recommend setting BROWSER over configuring Jupyter specifically, because setting BROWSER is the default way to specify which browser you prefer, regardless of which application it applies to.

• To choose the browser for a single session, set the BROWSER environment variable when running the jupyter process.

  BROWSER=chromium-browser jupyter notebook when you have chromium-browser when you prefer to use chromium-browser on PATH. Typical for Linux.

  BROWSER=C:/Home/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe jupyter notebook when you don't have the application on PATH. Typical for Windows.

  BROWSER=<your browser> jupyter notebook otherwise.

• To choose browser for your whole system, set the BROWSER environment variable globally.

Answer 11

Open anaconda prompt and type

jupyter notebook --generate-config

then go to "jupyter_notebook_config.py" path and add following line

c.NotebookApp.browser = 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %s'

Answer 12

For linux users:

First generate config file using: jupyter notebook --generate-config

Then open the generated file and look for #c.NotebookApp.browser = ''

Edit it to : c.NotebookApp.browser = '/bin/brave %s'

Replace /bin/brave with whatever your browser executable location is.

Answer 13

Make sure to activate the line by removing the # comment indicator.

Answer 14

Find .../jupyter/runtime/nbserver-11596-open.html file, or whatever the file name is, you can find the file name when jupyter notebook starts, and associate it with Chorme worked for me.

Answer 15

After considerable thrashing about trying to launch a jupyter notebook in chrome from Anaconda in Win10 when chrome was not my default browser, I combined several of the suggestions above and, in the jupyter_notebook_config.py file under .jupyter in my home directory put in these lines in place of the default c.NotebookApp.browser line, and it finally worked!:

import webbrowser
webbrowser.register('chrome', None, webbrowser.GenericBrowser(u'C:/PROGRA~2/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe'))
c.NotebookApp.browser = 'chrome'

Note the use of Unix-style directory separators (this is apparently a bug in webbrowser) and the use of DOS-style "PROGRA~2" --- both of these seem to be necessary. Adding "%s" after "chrome.exe" seemed not to help.

Answer 16

Is there any way to run jupyter on chrome in /tmp ?

something like that:

jupyter notebook --browser='google-chrome --user-data-dir=/tmp/'

Answer 17

To achieve this on Windows 10, I had to do the following:

For a temporarily choose/specify a browser from the Anaconda Prompt CLI (note the order/type of quotes, they seem to be different to most other answers as those answers failed to work for me):

jupyter notebook --browser="'C:\Program Files (x86)\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe' %s"

To set it permanently, edit the jupyter_notebook_config.py file in your .jupyter folder. I'm not certain that you need to escape the backslashes (i.e. \ vs just ), but I used the following and it worked (again, note that the order/type of quotes is different):

c.NotebookApp.browser = '"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BraveSoftware\\Brave-Browser\\Application\\brave.exe" %s'

Answer 18

In my case, macOS 10.15.4 with anaconda 1.9.12, finally, I found an effective one as below:

c.NotebookApp.browser = u'/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome %s'

I hope this helps someone. :-)

Answer 19

Jupyterlab 3 migrated from notebook server to plain jupyter server. To select the browser jupyter lab will open, put the config in .jupyter/jupyter_server_config.py and replace NotebookApp by ServerApp. For example:

c.ServerApp.browser = '/usr/bin/firefox -P notebook --new-window %s'

Answer 20

here are the steps

1. Open Anaconda promt and write:

   jupyter notebook --generate-config

2. go to that path and open with a text editor the .py file

3. In that file look for the line that constains the follow text:

   #c.NotebookApp.browser = ''

4. Befor that line write the follow code

   import webbrowser webbrowser.register('chrome', None, webbrowser.GenericBrowser(u'C:/PROGRA~2/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe'))

5. drop de symbol # in the lines to set the browser, so it looks like:

   c.NotebookApp.browser = ''

6. save the file, this makes Chrome as a default browser to launch jupyter notebook

Answer 21

Microsoft have setup Edge as a persistent virus on Windows. Even if you set the default browser to Chrome in Settings, you still get edge when opening up Jupyter.. This is because Microsoft have set Edge as the default app for .htm and .html files. In the settings for app defaults, find that one and change it to Chrome and you are all set..

Answer 22

Easy steps: 1. Uninstall the current browser which notebook picks on launch. 2. Launch the notebook again, it will ask for browser: choose the required one and enable the clause which says : (something like) Always choose this application for this types of files.

It will work. Install back you uninstalled browser.