Changing browser for IPython Notebook from system default

Question

I would like to keep firefox as my system default browser on my Mac, but launch IPython Notebook in Chrome^[1].

This answer led me to my ipython_notebook_config.py file but I can't get an instance of Chrome running. After c = get_config() and import webbrowser, I've tried:

1. webbrowser.register(u'chrome', None, webbrowser.Chrome())

2. webbrowser.register(u'chrome', webbrowser.Chrome)

3. webbrowser.register(u'chrome', None, webbrowser.GenericBrowser('/Applications/Browsers/Chrome.app'))

4. webbrowser.register(u'chrome', None, webbrowser.GenericBrowser('/Applications/Browsers/Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome'))

All followed by c.NotebookApp.browser = u'chrome'

I've fiddled with webbbrowser in the interpreter, and couldn't figure out how to create an instance of Chrome.

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^{[1]: PS Why is IPython Notebook so slow in firefox, especially for pylab with the inline backend? It's orders of magnitude faster (for rendering, scrolling, etc) in chrome.}

Answer 1

Since the great switch to Jupyter, and with recent versions of OS X (e.g., Yosemite), Jupyter/iPython (e.g., 4.0.1), and Chrome (e.g., 47), things have changed a bit. Jupyter/iPython no longer puts the notebook config file in ~/.ipython; it's now in ~/.jupyter, and the default file is generated with

jupyter notebook --generate-config

If you have an existing ipython_notebook_config.py you can migrate it with jupyter migrate (H/T).

After generating or migrating your config file, add the following line to jupyter_notebook_config.py:

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