Cursor no longer respects `"workbench.externalBrowser"` setting for `localhost` URLs

[mattrossman]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Cursor opens localhost links in its internal browser instead of using the browser option configured via VS Code’s "workbench.externalBrowser".

The behavior is instead seemingly controlled by the Chat panel’s browser connection setting.

This affects localhost hyperlinks in the Terminal, as well as localhost URLs opened during MCP OAuth flows, which disrupts usual development workflows where you’d want to open a site with your existing auth session(s).

Note the issue doesn’t occur for remote https:// URLs.

Steps to Reproduce

1. In the Chat panel, set the browser connection to “Browser Tab”
2. (Optional) In VS Code settings, set "workbench.externalBrowser" to a specific value like chrome or default. By default, it should use the system default browser.
3. In the integrated Terminal run echo "http://localhost:3000"
4. Cmd + Click the printed URL

Cursor then opens the URL in the internal browser.

Expected Behavior

Cursor will respect "workbench.externalBrowser" (e.g. open a Chrome tab) when opening localhost URLs from Terminal or during MCP authentication, as VS Code would.

I expect the browser connection setting in the Chat panel to only impact links opened by the agent.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.0.77
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: ba90f2f88e4911312761abab9492c42442117cf0
Date: 2025-11-13T23:10:43.113Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

Additional Information

This started happening around a week ago.

The exact outcome seems to depend on:

• The browser connection setting in Chat panel
• The type of URL (localhost vs remote)
• The method of opening the link (Terminal vs MCP OAuth)
• The "workbench.externalBrowser" setting in VS Code settings

Related discussion:

Cmd + Click links in Terminal now launches Cursor's built-in Browser

As of some update between 2.0.7X and 2.0.77, pressing cmd + click in Cursor’s built-in terminal now launches Cursor’s default built-in browser, which I did not ask for nor wanted. It’s nice that there is a built-in browser, and the inspector is nice, but 90% of the time, it’s an external browser I want. Thankfully there’s a setting to add: "workbench.externalBrowser": "default" Overall feedback on the built-in browser that’s necessitating using an external browser: TABS. Please. Until ther…

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

[deanrie]

Hey, thanks for the report.

Instead of using that setting, you can do the following: in the Chat panel, click the browser icon and select “Google Chrome” instead of “Browser Tab”. This will open localhost links in your default external browser.

[adaptive_behaviour (Drew)]

I’m getting this issue in the Windows version when opening the browser through launch.json. I also don’t get a menu when I click on the browser icon in the chat. Instead, it just opens the browser tab.
I went to Settings>Tools & MCP and set “Browser Automation” to “Google Chrome” and turned off “Show Localhost Links in Browser”.