How to associate .url with Internet Browser?

I am trying to associate .url files with Internet Browser as per advice given elsewhere to solve an issue I have. The normal way would be to go into Settings>Apps>Default Apps>Choose defaults by file type OR right click on icon and select 'Open with...', however none of these options is open to me.
.url does not appear in file types - see attached - and the icons don't have a 'Open with...' option.
Any help on this would be appreciated.

Looks like from this thread that url doesn't appear any more in the list, so how do I associate it?

url (Uniform Resource Locators) is not a file extension per say. It can include many extensions (htm,html,asp,php...).
You need to go to Settings/Apps/Default APPS/Browser/
and select files like URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol.
I believe there are less than 10 to select or so if you include other protocols like ftp.

Thank you. However, I'm a little confused. See attached from a thread I was looking at showing .url association in Win 10 and from a dir on my Desktop folder showing .url files.

Select browser then.

imacken said:

Thank you. However, I'm a little confused. See attached from a thread I was looking at showing .url association in Win 10 and from a dir on my Desktop folder showing .url files.

Click to expand...

Select Internet Browser then, or Edge, Firefox,Chrome or whatever you decide.

Thanks but I was just showing that from a thread I was looking at earlier. Win 11 doesn't have that .url option in file types as I said in my first post, so I can't select Internet Browser.

imacken said:

Thanks but I was just showing that from a thread I was looking at earlier. Win 11 doesn't have that .url option in file types as I said in my first post, so I can't select Internet Browser.

Click to expand...

Did you double-click on the url file itself and try to open it?

I think you are looking at some old bookmarks/favorites there.
Links should be easy to decipher.

A .url is not really about what program it's associated with..., it's about the protocol and the address it points to.
It varies depending on the address...
Change the address and the system will decide which program is set to handle that protocol, based on your defaults.

Thanks a lot for your time on this, guys. I appreciate it. I'll try out some things and see how it goes.

Maybe I'm not understanding, but when one installs an alternate browser the browser itself tells windows what file types it can open. The user can then choose which file types he wants to use that browser for.

Using Firefox an example, Settings>apps>default apps>firefox Click the arrow to the right. You get a list of every file type Firefox told windows that it CAN open. By clicking the little box to the right of each of those file types, you see a list of all apps on the system that can open that particular file type. Choose your default.
If you want your browser to open ALL the file types it has told Windows it can open, check every one.

As Edwin said, URL is nothing more than an address. Each modern-day web address chooses which protocol is used to access it, HTTP or HTTPS. So if you associate your chosen browser with those 2 protocols, all URLs will open with that browser. (FTP is also an old protocol that Firefox no longer supports. Some other browsers do, but one has to set rules within the browser itself to access with FTP. If one wants to use FTP, you can do a websearch on how to enable it in a particular browser.)

This has been discussed all over the web over the years. Mozilla explains it. What is a URL? - Learn web development | MDN

imacken said:

I am trying to associate .url files with Internet Browser

Click to expand...

Please right-click on an example & choose Properties.
Please screenshot & post the General tab & the Web document tab.
e.g.
-



All the best,
Denis

Guys, I appreciate the time and effort you have all put into helping. For reasons I can't explain, all seems to working OK now.

OAT said:

url (Uniform Resource Locators) is not a file extension per say. It can include many extensions (htm,html,asp,php...).
You need to go to Settings/Apps/Default APPS/Browser/
and select files like URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol.
I believe there are less than 10 to select or so if you include other protocols like ftp.

Click to expand...

That's not correct. .URL is a partially UTF-8 and binary text file utilized by the OS from approximately Windows XP until Windows 11, which is what OP referred to.

Edwin said:

Change the address and the system will decide which program is set to handle that protocol, based on your defaults.

Click to expand...

Somewhat. More specifically, URI schemas are registered with the OS from Windows 8 to 11, and applications define whether they support those schemas. However, most internet browsers register HTTP and HTTPS at most, whereas Feedback Hub shall, of course, have precedence over its custom schema (because what else would try to register it?).

More concisely, as I've explained at SuperUser:

As Microsoft Docs' Handle URI activation documentation explains, applications register arbitrary URI schemas with the OS at their discretion, and the standard default association handling is applied when conflicts arise.

Click to expand...

imacken said:

Thanks but I was just showing that from a thread I was looking at earlier. Win 11 doesn't have that .url option in file types as I said in my first post, so I can't select Internet Browser.

Click to expand...

I'm guessing that you mean the undermentioned, right?

Click to expand...