How to open external url using Ionic 1\Angularjs

Does anyone have a complete example on how to open an external URL using Ionic1 on IOS using Ionic v1.3.4? I have found a lot of snippets of code using window.open, ngCordova, ionic-native v2.9, etc, but I can’t get any of them to work on my iPhone 8. The examples work great in the browser, simulator, ionic-view, but doesn’t work once I publish the app.
When searching for this problem a lot of different solutions are returned, some of which worked at some time with some version of plugins, but doesn’t work now.
Thanks