At the present time (Py2.4):
"""
Under Unix, if the environment variable BROWSER exists,
it is 
interpreted to override the platform default list of
browsers,...
"""
(extract from
Python-2.4/Doc/html/lib/module-webbrowser.html)

But, when the environment variable BROWSER is messed up,
there is no reason not to try the other detected
browser alternatives.

In this patch, if the BROWSER variable is Ok, than it
is respected.
Otherwise, the previously detected browsers are tryied
out as if
BROWSER variable never existed.

This does not break backward compatibility and adds
more chance
for webbrowser.open() to succeed.

This patch was made against CVS head 2005-03-20, and
aims to 2.5, but can safely be apllied to any 2.4.x bug
fix release.

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I agree that this patch will improve chances that
webbrowser.open() will succeed. I'm a bit worried though
that if a user sets BROWSER incorrectly, it may cause some
confusion to see another browser opening. So we might some
some bug reports saying "webbrowser.py ignores BROWSER
variable" because a user set BROWSER incorrectly. One
solution might be to print some warning message if the
browser specified in BROWSER cannot be used.
(I'm just a patch reviewer, not an official Python
developer, so you don't need to take my comment to seriously
:-)).

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Michiel de Hoon,

this patch is obsolete after the latest revision of patch
 [ 754022 ] Enhanced webbrowser.py, that integrates this
functionality and others in a single patch.

Moreover, if a user sets BROWSER incorrectly, to see another
browser opening will probably lead him to find that BROWSER
was set incorrectly.
IMO it is better to see a different browser opening than no
browser at all. But thank you for revising this patch.

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If this patch is subsumed by 754022 can we close this one?

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Closed because it is subsumed by 754022