YouTube links opening in Browser instead of app

[Android Central Question]

I'm mainly using Opera on all my Android devices and realized that on my Pixel 2 XL YouTube links always open in the browser. My Sony Tablet doesn't seem to have this issue. After doing some research online, I tried fiddling around the standard app settings also, yet no change (always
open in this app, etc.) Uninstalling/deactivating Opera and YouTube didn't help either.
I tried other browsers as well to test if it's the same and Chrome was the only one that opened YouTube links in the app. How can I fix this issue?

 

[Rukbat]

A YouTube link that starts "http" or "https" says "open me in a web browser" - unless you have web URLs set to open in another app by default. (But then, all your web links would open in that app.) There's no youtube:// protocol, to call for a different app.

"Chrome was the only one that opened YouTube links" Evidently Chrome is set as the default web app. But you can't set "Chrome as the default we app unless the address starts with youtube".

Samsung is always different.