Maybe because Firefox is currently the default browser. A internet shortcut (.url) always opens the default browser. The Google Chrome shortcut opens Google Chrome with the page specified via the target line. You can create such a desktop shortcut yourself as well via a copy of the Firefox desktop shortcut and modify its target line.

cor-el

Thank you for your note.

Any idea why shortcuts on my desktop turned into .url files? I must have touched something but haven't got any idea of what.

Some of the .url files were in a folder and shortcuts to them were all that were on the desktop.

I even ran the DISM series and sfc /scannow. No corruption or problems there.

I can rebuild shortcuts but would like to understand and avoid the problem in the future.