Browser choice in Help

CNET had an article today “Time for vendors to stop foisting IE onto consumers”, with the core being “Why the hell do Adobe CS4 help and Lightroom geotag links launch Internet Explorer? It’s not even my secondary browser, much less default.”

I’ve checked in with the Help team here, and clicking an HTML resource does definitely call up your own primary browser. However, there are some situations where browsers don’t always register themselves with the system correctly… had occurred with Firefox 2, Opera 8, eg. I don’t think Stephen’s still using FF2, but this shows some situations which can produce similar symptoms.

I’d post a comment there instead of a new blogpost here, but CNET requires a CNET membership before reviewing comments, and I’m averse to a password for every site. (There’s also a high noise factor in comments already published there.)

Anyway, the parts of that conversation about “software forcing browsers” seems to be based on an incorrect general assumption, even though there are known situations where primary/secondary browsing settings can go wonky.