Selenium Guide: Automating Browser Interaction
Since Selenium 4.6, developers no longer need to manually download ChromeDriver. Selenium automatically detects the local browser version and downloads the appropriate driver.
Getting Started
1. Install the latest Selenium version
pip install --upgrade selenium
2. Basic usage (no need to specify driver path)
from selenium import webdriver
# Selenium 4.6+ automatically manages the driver
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://www.google.com")
print(driver.title)
driver.quit()
The first run may take longer as it will download the appropriate driver.
🛠 Commonly Used Functions
| Feature | Function & Description |
|---|---|
| Open a web page | driver.get(url) — open a specific URL |
| Get page title | driver.title — returns the current page title |
| Close browser | driver.quit() — closes the entire browser |
| Find single element | driver.find_element(by=By.X, value="...") |
| Find multiple elements | driver.find_elements(by=By.X, value="...") |
| Click an element | element.click() |
| Enter text | element.send_keys("your text") |
| Clear text field | element.clear() |
| Get text from element | element.text |
| Get/set attribute | element.get_attribute("href") |
| Scroll to element | driver.execute_script("arguments[0].scrollIntoView();", element) |
Common By locator options:
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
By.ID, By.CLASS_NAME, By.NAME, By.XPATH, By.CSS_SELECTOR, By.LINK_TEXT, By.PARTIAL_LINK_TEXT
How to Verify It Works
Try this code to ensure everything is working:
from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://www.google.com")
print(driver.title)
driver.quit()
If it opens Google and prints the title without requiring a downloaded driver, then Selenium Manager is working
Additional Info
How Selenium Auto-Handles ChromeDriver
Since Selenium 4.6.0, the built-in Selenium Manager:
- Detects your locally installed Chrome version
- Downloads the corresponding ChromeDriver
- Automatically sets the path; no need for manual config
📥 Optional: Manual ChromeDriver Download
If you prefer to manually manage the driver (e.g. offline use):
- ChromeDriver download page: https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads
- Be sure the version matches your installed Chrome browser
- Add
chromedriverto your PATH or specify the full path
Example:
from selenium import webdriver
service = webdriver.ChromeService(executable_path="/path/to/chromedriver")
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service)