Using Selenium without using any browser
Question:
I have been trying to do web automation using Selenium. Is there any way to use a browser like Chrome or Firefox without actually installing them, like using some alternate options, or having portable versions of them. If I can use portable versions how do I tell Selenium to use it?
Answers:
Install Selenium typing pip install selenium.
It comes with a portable version of Chrome browser, no need to manually install any browser for this.
Chrome will show this message to indicate that it is being ‘remote controlled:
"Chrome is controlled by automated test software"
To use the browsers like google-chrome and firefox you have to install the full-blown browser.
You can find a detailed discussion in Is Chrome installation needed or only chromedriver when using Selenium?
As an alternative you can use the headless phantomjs browser as follows:
-
Code Block:
from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.PhantomJS(executable_path=r'C:WebDriversphantomjs.exe', service_args=['--ignore-ssl-errors=true', '--ssl-protocol=tslv1.0'])
driver.set_window_size(1920, 1080)
driver.get("https://account.booking.com/register?op_token=EgVvYXV0aCJ7ChQ2Wjcyb0hPZDM2Tm43emszcGlyaBIJYXV0aG9yaXplGhpodHRwczovL2FkbWluLmJvb2tpbmcuY29tLyo2eyJwYWdlIjoiL3JlZGlyZWN0LXRvLWpvaW5hcHAtbHA_bGFuZz1pdCZhaWQ9MTE4NzM2MCJ9QgRjb2RlKg4QAToAQgBY5dGK8gVgAQ")
print(driver.page_source)
driver.quit()
You can find a detailed discussion in PhantomJS can’t load correctly web page
References
A couple of relevent discussions:
I have been trying to do web automation using Selenium. Is there any way to use a browser like Chrome or Firefox without actually installing them, like using some alternate options, or having portable versions of them. If I can use portable versions how do I tell Selenium to use it?
Install Selenium typing pip install selenium.
It comes with a portable version of Chrome browser, no need to manually install any browser for this.
Chrome will show this message to indicate that it is being ‘remote controlled:
"Chrome is controlled by automated test software"
To use the browsers like google-chrome and firefox you have to install the full-blown browser.
You can find a detailed discussion in Is Chrome installation needed or only chromedriver when using Selenium?
As an alternative you can use the headless phantomjs browser as follows:
-
Code Block:
from selenium import webdriver driver = webdriver.PhantomJS(executable_path=r'C:WebDriversphantomjs.exe', service_args=['--ignore-ssl-errors=true', '--ssl-protocol=tslv1.0']) driver.set_window_size(1920, 1080) driver.get("https://account.booking.com/register?op_token=EgVvYXV0aCJ7ChQ2Wjcyb0hPZDM2Tm43emszcGlyaBIJYXV0aG9yaXplGhpodHRwczovL2FkbWluLmJvb2tpbmcuY29tLyo2eyJwYWdlIjoiL3JlZGlyZWN0LXRvLWpvaW5hcHAtbHA_bGFuZz1pdCZhaWQ9MTE4NzM2MCJ9QgRjb2RlKg4QAToAQgBY5dGK8gVgAQ") print(driver.page_source) driver.quit()
You can find a detailed discussion in PhantomJS can’t load correctly web page
References
A couple of relevent discussions: