Firefox is default browser in System Prefs BUT Safari opens all saved urls, default grayed out in file Info (Cmd-I).

Jay Gamel wrote:

How do I change the default browser from Safari to Firefox (WAIT there's more!!!) When I open the file info, the Open With is set to Safari but is grayed out. I cannot change it. I asked this questions in January but had no joy.

YES i am the administrator, I have some skills with a Mac over the last 40 years of using them, and I've looked everywhere for a solution to this.

Safari is baked in to the macOS, you can leave it to Set to Safari as default—why fight it.

Put it in full screen mode and get it out of your way.

Use Mission Control on your Mac - Apple Support

See open windows and spaces in Mission Control on Mac

You can still use your Firefox as your main working browser.

Change the default web browser or email app on your Mac

FWIW, any browser I set as the default in System Preferences > General opens any webloc file on my Macs. That includes Brave, Firefox, Safari and the beta version of DuckDuckGo for Mac. Don't know why it's not working for you.

You could try booting into Safe Mode then restart normally.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

That's another odd thing about it. Just visiting some sites gets them added in Safari's preferences, though they're all automatically set to Deny.

Looking again just now, I at least see how they get added. It's the default of the check box at the bottom to allow sites that request notifications to get added.

Since I never want any web site to notify me of anything, the now obvious solution is to simply turn that check box off.

Edit: Oh! And then delete the entries that are already there.

Jay Gamel wrote:

Sorry, Leroy, I was asking the wrong question. it's about default for webloc files and I had that answered before. Old age is creeping up. Thank you for responding.

?

The same applies to your .webloc

While you can't change a webloc file to open in anything but Safari when you double click on one, you can right click on it and choose Firefox. Or, simply drag the webloc file into an open Firefox window (or onto the Firefox icon in the Dock).

Good catch! One of those things Apple does that seems simple - when you know it. Otherwise it's as unintuitive as possible.

Another like that I just discovered today. I was trying to figure out how to remove unwanted/unknown entries in the System Preferences under Notifications & Focus. You can turn them off, but not delete them. How do you do it? By illogically going to Safari and removing those names in its preferences by clicking on the Website tab, Notifications in the left column, and then finally deleting them in the right hand pane. They then disappear in the System Preferences.

That I wouldn't know. I have no sites I allow notifications from so I have nothing to erase.