WebDriver Manager

In Selenium automation, WebDriver is used to control web browsers for testing purposes. Traditionally, to run Selenium tests, we need to download the correct WebDriver executable (e.g., chromedriver.exe for Chrome browser ) and set its path manually. This process can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially when browsers update frequently.

What is WebDriver Manager?

WebDriver Manager is a library that automatically downloads, manages, and sets up the WebDriver binaries for Selenium WebDriver. It eliminates the need for manual downloading and configuring of browser drivers. This makes Selenium automation easier and more efficient.

Uses of WebDriver Manager

• Automatically downloads the latest WebDriver binary for the specified browser.
• Manages different versions of WebDriver binaries.
• Avoids compatibility issues between browser versions and WebDriver.
• Eliminates the need to set the WebDriver executable path manually.

 

• Improves efficiency and reduces setup effort in automation projects.

Example: WebDriver Manager with Chrome in Python

To use WebDriver Manager in Python, we need the webdriver-manager package along with Selenium. Install it using the following command:

/> pip install webdriver-manager selenium

Code Listing

A simple example of using WebDriver Manager to launch Chrome:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

# Setup WebDriver using WebDriver Manager
service = Service(ChromeDriverManager().install())
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service)

# Open a website
driver.get("https://www.google.com")

# Close the browser
driver.quit()

 

Code Explanation

• Installs WebDriver Manager and Selenium.
• Uses WebDriver Manager to download and configure the correct ChromeDriver.
• Opens Google in Chrome using Selenium.
• Closes the browser after execution.

There is no need to download Google Chrome browser driver executable and set the path in the automation script. WebDriver manager handles the tasks for you.