This article originally published on jarednielsen.com

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is important when you're a developer. Especially if you work remote. When I set up a new development environment, I create a cron job to change the default browser between work hours and 'play' hours. I use Chrome professionally as much of my workflow is built around the Google ecosphere. But I use Firefox as my personal browser (and so should you) for several reasons, the most important being Mozilla's emphasis on privacy.

How to Create a Cron Job to Change the Default Browser

Here's the snippet I use to create a cron job to change the default browser between 8:30AM and 5PM:

30 8 * * 1-5 xdg-settings set default-web-browser google-chrome.desktop
0 17 * * 1-5 xdg-settings set default-web-browser firefox.desktop

Cron jobs follow the '5 Star' format:

* * * * * command or commands to run

From left-to-right, each asterisk corresponds to the following:

1. Minute (by the hour)
2. Hour (by 24-hour clock)
3. Day (of the month)
4. Month
5. Day(s) (of the week)

The stars are followed by the command, or commands, to be run at this specific time.

In my snippet above, the cron job I created will run at 8:30AM (30 8), but only on weekdays (1-5). This will set my default browser as Chrome.

30 8 * * 1-5 xdg-settings set default-web-browser google-chrome.desktop

At 5PM (0 17), the cron job will run and set my default browser back to Firefox.

0 17 * * 1-5 xdg-settings set default-web-browser firefox.desktop

I leave the day of the month and the month at their default values (*).

Create a Cron Job to Change Default Browser

Creating a cron job on a Unix/Linux environment is easy.

To list the cron job for the current user:

crontab -l

To edit the cron job for the current user:

crontab -e

What are your work-life balance hacks? Let me know on Twitter @jarednielsen

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