Links in Skype chat open to HTML coding?

[aureliamedusa]

I searched for solutions but haven't found anything that works yet. Maybe someone here can help? I'm not overly familiar with Ubuntu in general (been using 12.04 for a few weeks now) so it's probably user error.
When I click links in Skype chat, it opens to what looks like a page full of HTML coding, rather than the page itself. Clicking "open link location" in the right-click menu does nothing. Chrome is the default browser, and the only browser, as discovered using

sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

which gave me

[sudo] There is only one alternative in link group x-www-browser: /usr/bin/google-chrome
Nothing to configure.

Similarly, I checked the default applications. Mail, Calendar, Music, Video, and Photos all give me drop-down lists with at least the only option highlighted, but what seems to be the problem is that Web's dropdown list has nothing on it. When I click on it, it does nothing, and where the other lists say "Evolution," etc, the Web box is grayed out. This seems to be the root of the issue, so is there anything I can do to fix it?