diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index 1c5d103c..dae7b51c 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ Package: terminator
 Architecture: all
 Depends: ${python:Depends}, python-vte, python-gconf, gconf2
 XB-Python-Version: ${python:Versions}
+Recommends: xdg-utils, python-xdg  
 Description: Multiple GNOME terminals in one window
  This is a project to produce an efficient way of filling a 
  large area of screen space with terminals. This is done by 
diff --git a/doc/terminatorrc.5 b/doc/terminatorrc.5
index 9beaf8de..4e945823 100644
--- a/doc/terminatorrc.5
+++ b/doc/terminatorrc.5
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 .TH "TERMINATORRC" "5" "Feb 22, 2008" "Nicolas Valcarcel <nvalcarcel@ubuntu.com>" ""
 .SH "NAME"
-~/.terminatorrc \- the config file for terminator terminal emulator.
+${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/terminator/terminatorrc (usually ~/.config/terminator/terminatorrc)
+or ~/.terminatorrc \- the config file for terminator terminal emulator.
 .SH "DESCRIPTION"
 This manual page documents briefly the
 .B termiatorrc config file.
diff --git a/terminator b/terminator
index beb2d9a3..deec6402 100755
--- a/terminator
+++ b/terminator
@@ -69,6 +69,7 @@ except:
     "gobject, gtk and pango to run Terminator.")
   sys.exit(1)
 
+
 # import a library for viewing URLs
 try:
   # gnome.url_show() is really useful
@@ -88,11 +89,18 @@ except:
   error.run()
   sys.exit (1)
 
+def exec_command(executable, *parameters):
+    command = [executable] 
+    command.extend(parameters) 
+    
+    return os.system(command[0] + " \"%s\"" %command[1])
+
 def openurl (url):
-  try:
-    url_show (url)
-  except:
-    pass
+  if exec_command("xdg-open", url):
+    try:
+      url_show (url)
+    except:
+      pass
 
 class TerminatorTerm (gtk.VBox):
 
diff --git a/terminatorlib/config.py b/terminatorlib/config.py
index c5643d58..d88baeaf 100755
--- a/terminatorlib/config.py
+++ b/terminatorlib/config.py
@@ -37,6 +37,12 @@ import os, sys, re
 # import unix-lib
 import pwd
 
+HAS_XDG = True
+try:
+  import xdg.BaseDirectory
+except:
+  HAS_XDG = False
+  
 # set this to true to enable debugging output
 debug = True
 
@@ -142,7 +148,11 @@ class TerminatorConfValuestoreRC (TerminatorConfValuestore):
   #       that can be re-used when rc changes.
   def __init__ (self):
     self.type = "RCFile"
-    self.rcfilename = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser("~"), ".terminatorrc")
+    if HAS_XDG and xdg.BaseDirectory.load_first_config('terminator'):
+      self.rcfilename = os.path.join(xdg.BaseDirectory.load_first_config('terminator'), "terminatorrc")
+    else:
+      self.rcfilename = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser("~"), ".terminatorrc")
+
     if os.path.exists (self.rcfilename):
       rcfile = open (self.rcfilename)
       rc = rcfile.readlines ()