How to open a URL in python

Question

import urllib

fun open():
    return urllib.urlopen('http://example.com')

But when example.com opens it does not render CSS or JavaScript. How can I open the webpage in a web browser?

@error(404)
def error404(error):
    return webbrowser.open('http://example.com')

I am using bottle. Giving me the error:

TypeError("'bool' object is not iterable",)

It looks like we have a language disconnect. the `error` decorator seems to be expecting an iterable. `webbrowswer.open` will _open a url in the browser_ and return `True` or `False`, preserving [command-query-separation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command-query_separation). You don't actually want to open this page in the browswer, do you? — aaronasterling, Nov 29 '10 at 08:54
Do you want to download the javascript and css after you've already downloaded the html? — aaronasterling, Nov 29 '10 at 09:00
I concern is to open url in browser. If it is possible with downloding the js and css then it is OK. — shamsee, Nov 29 '10 at 09:06
just open the python interpreter and type `webbrowser.open('http://www.google.com')` and see if it does what you want. — aaronasterling, Nov 29 '10 at 09:16

score 272 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 15 '16 at 20:44

272

with the webbrowser module

import webbrowser

webbrowser.open('http://example.com')  # Go to example.com

edited Jul 15 '16 at 20:44

rmmh

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answered Nov 29 '10 at 08:37

aaronasterling

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What the.. this always opens the internet explorer?!!!? D: For the time being I used subprocess to call an explorer with the url as argument. This always uses the "default web browser" but also opens an explorer instance... hmmm – ewerybody Jun 12 '15 at 18:46
1

@ewerybody It is always going to open your default browser. – Oct 30 '22 at 17:02
Well, this is 7 years ago I'm pretty sure I had Firefox as default browser even back then. Now this ^ also works for me – ewerybody Nov 06 '22 at 20:34
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[Quite some things](https://github.com/python/cpython/commits/main/Lib/webbrowser.py) happened on the module since then. – ewerybody Nov 06 '22 at 20:36

score 41 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 25 '13 at 10:19

import webbrowser  
webbrowser.open(url, new=0, autoraise=True)

Display url using the default browser. If new is 0, the url is opened in the same browser window if possible. If new is 1, a new browser window is opened if possible. If new is 2, a new browser page (“tab”) is opened if possible. If autoraise is True, the window is raised

webbrowser.open_new(url)

Open url in a new window of the default browser

webbrowser.open_new_tab(url)

Open url in a new page (“tab”) of the default browser

score 36 · Answer 3 · edited May 14 '21 at 05:48

36

On Windows

import os
os.system("start \"\" https://example.com")

On macOS

import os
os.system("open \"\" https://example.com")

On Linux

import os
os.system("xdg-open \"\" https://example.com")

Cross-Platform

import webbrowser

webbrowser.open('https://example.com')

edited May 14 '21 at 05:48

Fantastic Mr Fox

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answered Sep 11 '18 at 21:52

Abraham

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score 10 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 29 '10 at 08:37

You have to read the data too.

Check out : http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/urllib2/ to understand it.

response = urllib2.urlopen(..)
headers = response.info()
data = response.read()

Of course, what you want is to render it in browser and aaronasterling's answer is what you want.

score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 20 '16 at 21:03

8

You could also try:

import os
os.system("start \"\" http://example.com")

This, other than @aaronasterling ´s answer has the advantage that it opens the default web browser. Be sure not to forget the "http://".

answered Feb 20 '16 at 21:03

Sebastian Hietsch

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score 3 · Answer 6 · edited Jan 13 '19 at 02:32

3

Here is another way to do it.

import webbrowser

webbrowser.open("foobar.com")

edited Jan 13 '19 at 02:32

Arnav Poddar

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answered Oct 09 '16 at 12:59

DocJ457

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score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Nov 17 '17 at 02:34

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I think this is the easy way to open a URL using this function

webbrowser.open_new_tab(url)

edited Nov 17 '17 at 02:34

Pang

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answered Nov 16 '17 at 23:08

Namdari Himan

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 29 '23 at 09:09

For those who feel like not using webbrowser, here's my Windows-only solution with os instead:

import os # `os.path` is still available through `os`!

sOFile = os.path.join(os.environ["TEMP"], "so.url") # Put StackOverflow's .URL file in %temp%
with open(sOFile, "w") as urlIO:
    urlIO.write("[InternetShortcut]\nURL=https://stackoverflow.com")
os.startfile(sOFile)
os.remove(sOFile)

How to open a URL in python

8 Answers8

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