The Simple Question

So you want to change your default browser or email client for your Mac running OS X. Piece of cake, right? No.

I recently attempted to change the default browser. I searched system preferences, asked coworkers, and then when that failed, I searched Google. Do you see the problem here? Someone who spends 40 hours a week developing Web sites on a Mac should not have to use Google to figure out how to change the default browser. What do the less-than-savvy users do? (They probably don’t know there are multiple browsers.)

The Unlikely Answer

To change the default browser, you must open up your Safari browser and change the preference for default browser to a browser that is potentially not Safari. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Again, no.

It’s a similar situation for changing your default email client. It’s not in your system preferences, if that’s what you’re thinking. You must change your preferences within Mac’s Mail email client.

As someone who’s concerned with making things easy for the user, I must say this setup is bad. Bad Mac. Bad!

Opening a Wormhole

I haven’t tried it, but what would happen if you deleted Safari and Mail, which are the defaults? How would you change your default browser and email client? What would open when you clicked on a link within your email client? Or an email address within a Web page? What would open if the defaults had not been changed from the defaults that had been deleted?

If you try this, and don’t die or get sucked into a wormhole, let me know what happens.