Link to Chrome or Firefox private mode on my desktop

General Help
1

I want to create shortcuts on my desktop for Chrome or Firefox to open a window in private mode a given address e.g. Teams or Bitwarden. How can I realize this. I can't even find the program path of this Webbrowser. I'v found an article describing this on ubuntu:

Erstellt eine Datei mit dem Name eurer Anwendung unter ~/Schreibtisch/ z.B.
touch ~ /Schreibtisch/heise .desktop

Dann fügt das in die Datei ein.
#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal= false
Exec= /usr/bin/chromium-browser --app=https: //www.heise.de/
Name=Heise
Icon=/home/USERNAME/icon.png

doesn't work on Zorin

2

Hi, and welcome!

You are on the right track, what I suspect is not working here is the space right after the equal sign (=) on some lines there. Make sure there are no spaces at all.
Also, you many need to right-click on the file and select "Allow Launching".

For Firefox in particular, by default Zorin OS installs it as a flatpak package which means that the file should look something like this:

Exec=flatpak run org.mozilla.firefox --private-window <url>

And for Chromium it should be pretty similar to:

Exec=/usr/bin/chromium --incognito <url>
4 Likes
3

Hi,
thank you for your answer.
Unfortunately it don't work.
If I try this in Terminal

Exec=/usr/bin/chromium --'https://teams.microsoft.com'

or

Exec=/usr/bin/chromium https://teams.microsoft.com

or

Exec=/usr/bin/chromium --https://teams.microsoft.com

i get this error:

bash: --https://teams.microsoft.com: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

More details with Firefox:
trying

Exec=flatpak run org.mozilla.firefox --private-window

I get this error:

Der Befehl 'run' wurde nicht gefunden, meinten Sie:
Befehl 'rue' aus dem Snap darkdimension-rue (1.0.7)
Befehl 'bun' aus dem Snap bun-js (1.0.29)
Befehl 'zun' aus dem deb python3-zunclient (4.4.0-0ubuntu1)
Befehl 'srun' aus dem deb slurm-client (21.08.5-2ubuntu1)
Befehl 'rn' aus dem deb trn4 (4.0-test77-14)
Befehl 'rup' aus dem deb rstat-client (4.0.1-11)
Befehl 'crun' aus dem deb crun (0.17+dfsg-1.1)
Befehl 'grun' aus dem deb grun (0.9.3+git20200303-1)
Befehl 'runq' aus dem deb exim4-daemon-heavy (4.95-4ubuntu2.4)
Befehl 'runq' aus dem deb exim4-daemon-light (4.95-4ubuntu2.4)
Befehl 'runq' aus dem deb sendmail-bin (8.15.2-22ubuntu3)
Befehl 'zrun' aus dem deb moreutils (0.66-1)
Befehl 'runc' aus dem deb runc (1.1.7-0ubuntu1~22.04.1)
Siehe 'snap info ' für weitere Versionen.
what's wrong?

4

You are not supposed to run this in Terminal, but add it to the .desktop file that makes the shortcut.

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal= false
Exec=flatpak run org.mozilla.firefox --private-window <url>
Name=Heise
Icon=/home/USERNAME/icon.png

Also note that I used Chromium as an example in the snippet on my other post. I just mention this because if you are using another Chromium-based browser, like Google Chrome, the path will be different. To find the correct path, run in Terminal:

which google-chrome

Change the name of the browser with whichever one you're using, of course. This will return something like /usr/bin/google-chrome which is what you need to use in the Exec line. The remaining options like --incognito will probably be the same, though.

1 Like
5

Thank you.
I will try the shortcut later with firefox but

which google-chrome

in Terminal gives no result
if I enter

chrome://version/

In Google Chromes Adressbar I get this:

/app/extra/chrome --disable-features=WebAssemblyTrapHandler,DesktopPWAsRunOnOsLogin --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end

as command Line - but I can not use it in Terminal.
Just for interest, if I want to start Chrome from Terminal, how to start it - I am really confused about the folder structure with apps in zorin, nothing I know from other Ubuntu distributions.

6

This confuses me, Zorin OS uses the same folder tree as Ubuntu and the folder structure should not be any different from Ubuntu.
I do a lot of work inside the folder and file tree, including in root, and have not found any major differences between Zorin OS and Ubuntu. Can you please clarify what is different for you?

Do you have Google Chrome installed or Chromium Browser?
Are you using Chrome or a Chrome or Chromium based browser (Like Vivaldi?)

1 Like
7

I have installed Google Chrome via Software

8

From Software store...
Did it install as a Flatpak, Snap or from APT?
You can double check by launching the Software Store, navigating to the Chrome install page and looking at the Source

9

Thank you
installed via flathub so: flatpak

10

The desktop file you are using in the O.P. is using an Executive call on /usr/bin/Chromium-Browser

Like @zenzen's suggestion for the Flatpak Firefox, you must call on Flatpak to launch Google-Chrome as well as changing chromium-browser to google-chrome.

1 Like
11

Ah, I thought that Chrome would be installed as a native .deb package, given the example shown in the first post of the thread. But since it's a Flatpak the only change is in the way it's invoked. Everything after the equal sign is the actual command; you can type this in the terminal as well.

Exec=flatpak run com.google.Chrome --incognito <url>

By the way, to find the name of the flatpak package run flatpak list and look for the Application ID column. You would also use this ID to install packages over the terminal, and you can search for it by running flatpak search <package>.

You can also head over to https://flathub.org and search there.

I suspect you mean this because of the use of Flatpaks? Ubuntu doesn't like this package format as they have their own, Snap, but as @Aravisian said this is the only discrepancy with Ubuntu as far as system structure goes.

1 Like
12

Thank you zenzen - now this works!
Now I also have also learned something about flatpak and snap.....

1 Like
13

I marked post 11 as the solution since it contains relevant information applied directly by the user to get things working.

1 Like
14

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