Default Web Browser and Desktop Shortcuts

On my last computer I had found a way of putting website shortcuts right onto my desktop. It was really convenient because I could keep all my casual "play" bookmarks in the browser itself, and important sites for things like banking and online bills were accessed from a special corner of my desktop. I've since built a new computer and I don't remember how I did it before. My primary browser is Chrome and I can't find a way to save bookmarks to the desktop. What I've been forced to do is right click on the desktop, go in "New" and then select "Shortcut", and then just put the website's URL. It works but the icon pictures are all wrong. On my last comp each website had a proper icon (Bank of Montreal had the BMO logo, Videotron had the Videotron logo, etc).

But that's a minor inconvenience... what's really ticked me off is that I've just recently installed Opera, I wanted to use it with Dropbox in an isolated setting. But now all my desktop shortcuts automatically open in Opera. This is really annoying because Chrome had all my preferences all calibrated, and I want to use Opera only for the Dropbox. I've looked on Google on how to change the default browser... but I can't find anything helpful. I don't want to just uninstall Opera because I hope to use it too, but Chrome is my primary browser.