We didn't give up.... we use one these three when someone needs to be shown a web page:

  ShellExecuteW(NULL, L"open", (LPCWSTR)wuri, NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

   [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] openURL:nsurl];

  ::execlp ("xdg-open", "xdg-open", s.c_str(), (char*)NULL);