How to open .url shortcuts (from Windows) on Lubuntu

What worked for me was this trick by Saidul Hassan, with some minor modifications.

EDIT: I had to change this slightly to handle URL's with an '=' symbol in them.

EDIT2: Also adopted to use shortcuts with bracket characters in them, thanks to Kound.

1. Right-click one of the .url files in Lubuntu file manager and go to Open With... or Properties --> Open With and choose Custom Command Line.

2. Enter this as the terminal command, substituting opera for the browser of your choice:

    bash -c "cat %f | grep -e 'URL\([[].*[]]\)\{0,1\}=' | cut -d= -f 2| xargs opera &"
   

3. Do NOT check "Execute in terminal emulator."

4. You must give it an Application Name at bottom.

5. Check the box for Set selected application as default.

An example should look like the following:

Now double-clicking .url files should open them as a new tab in the chosen browser.

Note: If you end up with more than three "Open With" associations to a file type, things may start behaving strangely. To remove these extra associations, look in /home/you/.local/share/applications for some duplicated .desktop files and remove them.

Create a script and open the .url with it.

I have used these two scripts

#!/bin/bash

grep -h -s --color=never '^URL=' "$@" | cut -d'=' -f2- | xargs /snap/bin/chromium &

or

#!/bin/bash

sed 's/^BASEURL=/URL=/' "$1" | grep -m 1 '^URL=' | sed 's/^URL=//' | sed 's/\r//' | xargs xdg-open

See which one works for you