Python: generic webbrowser.get().open() for chrome.exe does not work

Question

I am on Python 2.7 (Win 8.1 x64) and I want to open a URL in Chrome. As Chrome is only natively supported in 3.3+, I was trying a generic call:

import webbrowser
webbrowser.get("C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe %s").open("http://google.com")

The path is correct and print does give me a Handler:

"<webbrowser.GenericBrowser object at 0x0000000002D26518\>"

However, the open() - preferably open_new_tab()) - function does not work. It returns False.

If I run the command

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "https://google.com"

in windows run dialog, it does do work, though.

---

If I set Chrome as standard browser and run

webbrowser.get().open("http://google.com")

it does work, but it's not what I want.

Has anyone an idea what's going wrong?

Glabrescent

What happens when you do import subprocess; subprocess.Popen([r'C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe', 'https://google.com']).wait()? – Poor

@MartijnPieters: This actually works. :-) – Glabrescent

Yes, and dano explained what goes wrong; I didn't realise shlex would do the wrong thing on Windows. – Poor

Answer 1

You have to use unix-style paths in the webbrowser.get call:

webbrowser.get("C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %s").open("http://google.com")

This is because webbrowser internally does a shlex.split on the path, which will just erase Windows-style path separators:

>>> cmd = "C:\\Users\\oreild1\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe %s"
>>> shlex.split(cmd)
['C:Usersoreild1AppDataLocalGoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe', '%s']
>>> cmd = "C:/Users/dan/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %
s"
>>> shlex.split(cmd)
['C:/Users/dan/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe', '%s']

shlex will actually do the right thing here if given the posix=False keyword argument, but webbrowser won't supply that, even on Windows. This is arguably a bug in webbrowser.

Haberdashery

Sounds like something that needs reporting to the Python bug tracker; I cannot find any pre-existing issues. – Poor

@MartijnPieters I was in the process of filing one :) – Haberdashery

Thanks, @dano: Issue22025 - webbrowser.get(command_line) does not support Windows-style path separators – Glabrescent

python 3.6 windows7: did not work for me (URL is open in default browser) – Lush

Answer 2

You don't need to switch to Unix-style paths -- simply quote the executable.

import webbrowser
webbrowser.get('"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" %s').open('http://google.com')

Eyelid

Answer 3

Following the suggestions above and working on Windows, to enable Firefox I have changed (and un-commented) the following line in the config file (note the %s at the end):

c.NotebookApp.browser = 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe %s'

This worked for me. Thanks

Threesome

What config file do you mean? – Glabrescent

Answer 4

Worked for me

code snippet:

import webbrowser

chrome_path = 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %s'
webbrowser.get(chrome_path).open('http://google.com')

Douglassdougy

Answer 5

On Windows, you don't need to use UNIX-style path. Just wrap the raw string path to google.exe in escaped quotes, and append %s token after it, within an f-string:

import webbrowser

url = "https://docs.python.org/3/library/webbrowser.html"
chrome = r"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
webbrowser.get(f"\"{chrome}\" %s").open_new_tab(url)

Hardened

Answer 6

You can try this:

import webbrowser

chrome_path = "path_where_chrome_is_located"
webbrowser.register('chrome', None, webbrowser.BackgroundBrowser(chrome_path))

webbrowser.get('chrome').open('url')

Jabon

Thank you for your answer, however in it's current state it's not formatted very well. Also, looking at the question and the accepted answer, the actual problem the asker was having was with the chrome path itself, which your answer doesn't currently address. – Mia