I had the same problem here on my Xubuntu box where Thunderbird is the default email client, with the added deffect that even if Firefox was open, clicking on a link wouldn't work and I had to copy and paste the link on the browser url bar to open links from emails.
Searching the web, I found out that Thunderbird saves this setting in its advaced configuration: http://www.bsdguides.org/guides/freebsd/misc/firefox-thunderbird.php So I opened the advanced config editor ( preferences -> advanced -> general ) and searched for the "handler" keyword. The setting for network.protocol-handler.app.http , ftp and https were all pointing to a firefox path from my windows install. So I remembered that this profile was transfered from my previous win install quite some time ago. Changing the lines to read just "firefox" fixed the problem for me. (could probably have used xfbrowser4 here?) I had to do the same for Firefox (add the mozilla-thunderbird handler for mailto app), even starting from a clean profile (the key just wasn't there), so it would be wise to check if the defaults are correctly set on the distro before release time. Maybe make the "set default/preferred apps" programs used in Gnome, Xfce, etc. edit these keys too ? Would probably save hours of troubeshooting for new users that migrated their profiles from other systems. -- Clicking a link in thunderbird doesn't open firefox https://launchpad.net/bugs/53304 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
