Google Meet Shared Screen Freezes: Sometimes, when using Google Meet, a shared tab, window, or screen will "stall" and stop updating. This appears to be an issue with Google Chrome after version 139, but it may also happen in other browsers. We have found that using screen annotations fixes this immediately and every time: click the tool at the bottom center of the shared screen that looks like an ink squiggle, then select "Disappearing Ink" and draw on the shared view to unfreeze it.

Default Browser: You can change the default browser using [ System Settings ] > [ Applications ] > [ Default Applications ] and then selecting a value for the [ Web browser ], and then click [ Apply ] at the bottom right. Usually this works immediately, but if not, see the advice in Troubleshooting section.

Browser Scaling: Sometimes, GTK apps like Google Chrome or Firefox will not scale like the rest of the UI. If this affects your system, see the workaround found in the External Displays Guided Solution.

Printing: See Printing which discusses interfaces for browsers.

Browser Profiles: Most modern browsers support synced profiles that you can use across multiple devices. Each browser instance can have many of them. In Chrome, for example, profiles are selected from a circle icon, directly to the left of the three-vertical-dots menu icon at the top-right of the browser window. Synced profiles contain account information, installed extensions, preferences, and bookmarks. Usually, synced profiles are a great convenience. However, they can also copy incompatibilities, misconfigurations, misbehaving extensions, or corruption to all browsers that use them. Badly configured ad-blocker extensions, for example, are a frequent cause of trouble.

If you find an issue that you think may be profile-related, you can easily try using a different profile to see if it fixes the problem. For example, if you see a DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN error when you try to access the website in Chrome, try to access the same website in Firefox. Or try the browser action in a separate profile using a "Private" or "Incognito" window. To isolate the browser even further, create a new user, sign-in as that user, then try the browser action there with a new profile — you can delete this user promptly after this experiment. If the browser works as expected in any of these scenarios, then the browser profile is likely the trouble.

If the issue is in the profile, you can search for a guide on how to resolve your specific issue. A typical solution is to first disable all extensions and then re-enable them one by one. Alternately, you can create a new profile and start fresh. That's actually fairly easy, since one can import extensions and bookmarks into a new profile without too much effort. Firefox profiles are found in $HOME/.mozilla/firefox, whereas Chrome profiles are found in $HOME/.config/google-chrome. See Mozilla Support and Chrome Support for more information.

Kubuntu 24.04 LTS with KFS uses the native Debian packages for Firefox and Thunderbird. If you have tried the snap and want to revert to the package, this guide should work.. Kubuntu Focus does not support the Firefox snap.

System title bars: We prefer standard title bars on Firefox. To set this, click on the menu button at top-right, then [ More Tools ] > [ Customize Toolbar ]. This will open a page in the main browser menu. Now look for the [x] Title Bar checkbox present in the bottom-left corner of the window and enable it.

Disabling Firefox Pocket recommendations: Firefox displays various articles chosen by Mozilla on the default new tab page. If this is undesirable, you may disable these recommendations. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the new tab page. Then click on the "Recommended stories" switch to disable them.

KeePassXC: See Passwords for details on using this tool with your browser.

Videos Won't Play on Nvidia: This happens in version 147 because of a bug where the video acceleration is broken. To work around this while retaining 3D acceleration, enter chrome://flags into the address bar, then disable Hardware-accelerated video decode. Alternatively, you can can disable all graphics acceleration in the browser using [ Google Chrome ] > [ Hamburger Menu ] > [ Settings ] > [ System ] > Use graphics acceleration... > toggle OFF. Once the capability returns, you can revert either or both changes.

Get rid of OAuth sign-in prompts

Block Sign-In As Google Prompts: Many sites will attempt to coerce you to use Google OAuth sign-in instead of your password. To prevent this, you can use [ Google Chrome ] > [ Hamburger Menu ] > [ Settings ] > [ Privacy and security ] > [ Site settings ] > [ Additional content settings ] > [ Third-party sign-in ] and then check [x] Block sign-in prompts from identity services.

Intel Graphics Corruption: Some people have seen Google Chrome present corrupt graphics, especially around text on certain web pages. However, most pages are unaffected. This is an Intel Graphics (i915 iGPU) issue on 11th-gen CPUs and later. See GPU Select for complete resolution.

Appearance Settings: The system sets the following by default, but a synced profile may change them. Select [ Menu ] > [ Appearance ] to confirm these settings:

• Near the top, select [ Theme ] > [ Use QT ].
• Enable [ Settings ] > [ Appearance ] > [ Use system title bar and borders ] so your windows work as expected.

As of Q2 2025, the QT theme is preferred default because it is integrated to the desktop color theme. Unlike the other themes, it also immediately communicates light or dark theme changes to any web pages you may be viewing.

KeePassXC: See Passwords for details on using this tool with your browser.

For specific browser hints, see the section for that specific browser, such as Firefox.

Q: I have switched my default browser. However, links keep opening in a different browser. What can I do?

A: The default browser selection can be sticky. Using the default browser selector discussed in the General Hints section, select something else, apply, then try again. You may have to log out and back in to see the change. Another way to change immediately is to open a terminal and run xdg-settings set default-web-browser <browser-name>.

This is a partial revision history. See the git repository for all entries.

• 2026-04-22 fb90e777 Add applicability table
• 2026-04-19 5a11bc39 Refresh browser guidance
• 2026-04-19 5a11bc39 Move KeePassXC+FirefoxSnap to Passwords guide
• 2026-03-02 1fe5bd34 Revise GUI element and keypress text styles
• 2025-12-02 37c4212c Review and add links to Kubuntu LTS with KFS
• 2025-06-04 fbfac979 Clarify Kubuntu 24.04 LTS with KFS
• 2025-04-19 274c0ff1 Update grammar and content per audit
• 2025-04-05 a2c572b2 Update images and content
• 2025-02-28 95bc39aa Include instructions on how to disable 'Login with Google' prompts
• 2025-02-27 1f2ddf9b Add the Chrome section on avoiding forced oauth
• 2024-12-06 35123b93 Unify keyboard shortcut presentation, expand Firefox snap advice
• 2024-12-01 2729b4dc Fix more minor grammar and spelling issues
• 2024-09-10 73fcff02 Fix minor grammar and spelling issues
• 2024-08-19 57a2389d Add white theme
• 2024-08-02 e9d2559c Update content to current
• 2024-08-01 45251c42 Add lightbox views, refresh content
• 2024-07-31 27913e88 Add missing 2 column tag
• 2024-07-28 ee7b4601 Update metadata content, collapsable sections, lightbox
• 2024-07-26 7814a97d Sync primary images between guided solutions slideshow and articles
• 2024-07-16 e9155e41 Merge master link fixes
• 2024-07-02 c83184e4 Switch to kfocus-mime schema
• 2024-07-02 a89e90d5 Noble release updates
• 2024-06-06 38f30d21 Update for Noble
• 2024-04-08 9e6be9cf Update Firefox to official Mozilla packages
• 2024-03-18 fb9b592d Add syntax highlighting for codeblocks
• 2024-02-21 1b246b72 Add advice to select default browser
• 2024-01-25 114779aa Update Chrome settings guidance to recent version
• 2024-01-14 4899f85a Add guidance on auto-open kfocus apps to Chrome
• 2023-11-18 e770b1c6 Add search and help bar
• 2023-09-11 d27f8bfb Split content by browser type, added detail
• 2023-07-30 060ddbea First publication