Google Chrome currently dominates the global web browser market share. The ease of use combined with multiple useful features makes it widely popular among users. Given its importance and high user coverage, it has become critical for quality engineers to test websites/web-applications on the Chrome browser. As Selenium offers cross-browser functionality allowing users to run test cases on different browsers, Selenium with Chrome browser makes the primary combination to test any web application on the browser platform. Chrome provides a driver, which can establish the connection between Selenium WebDriver & Google Chrome and run the Selenium test in Chrome browser. Let's comprehend the details and usage of the Selenium ChromeDriver to run the automated test on the Chrome browser by cover the details under the following sections:

• What is Selenium ChromeDriver?
  • What are the pre-requisites for Selenium ChromeDriver?
• How to install ChromeDriver on Windows?
  • How to download ChromeDriver on Windows?
  • And how to setup ChromeDriver on Windows?
  • And how to run Selenium tests on Chrome Browser?
• How to install ChromeDriver on macOS?
  • How to download ChromeDriver on macOS?
  • And how to setup ChromeDriver on macOS?
  • How to install ChromeDriver using Homebrew?

What is Selenium ChromeDriver?

ChromeDriver is the communication medium that allows users to run their Selenium tests on Chrome browser. It is a standalone server that implements the open-source Selenium WebDriver Chromium Protocol. The Selenium tests interact with the ChromeDriver using the JsonWireProtocol, which translates the Selenium commands into corresponding actions on the Chrome browser.

The sole purpose of the ChromeDriver is to launch and interact with Google Chrome. Without using ChromeDriver, it's not possible to run Selenium tests on the chrome browser. It is why it is one of the most vital pre-requisite of the test execution on Chrome. A ChromeDriver can be used easily by instantiating the object of the ChromeDriver, assigning it to a WebDriver object, and using that object for browser-based actions.

What are the pre-requisites for Selenium ChromeDriver?

Before we can start writing Selenium tests or setup ChromeDriver, there are few pre-requisites that we should have on our system:

1. Java JDK: We require JDK or Java Development Kit for writing java programs. It contains JRE and other development tools, including compiler and debugger. As we will be writing our selenium tests in java, having JDK is a must. You can get more information about JDK and read its installation guide from here: How to install Java?
2. Java IDE: IDE or Integrated Development Environment helps in writing Java programs. It offers many different features to users to ease their programming requirements. For this tutorial, we will be using Eclipse IDE, although any other Java IDE will be perfectly fine. To more or know how to install Eclipse, visit here: Install Eclipse.
3. Selenium WebDriver: To develop Selenium tests, we need Selenium WebDriver. You can download Selenium WebDriver from the official Selenium site, and you can learn how to configure Selenium in the tutorial; Configure Selenium WebDriver. For this tutorial, we will be using Selenium 4.

How to install ChromeDriver on Windows?

Now, as we have learned what ChromeDriver is and why do, we need it for executing Selenium tests on the chrome browser. Let's move a little further and learn how to setup ChromeDriver with your Selenium Java project and execute your tests on Chrome. The first part will be to download the ChromeDriver. Let's see how we can do the same on the Windows platform?

How to download ChromeDriver on Windows?

Before we can download the ChromeDriver, we need to check the version of the Chrome browser on your system. ChromeDriver has a direct compatibility dependency on the Chrome browser version, so you need to download the compatible version of ChromeDriver. Follow the steps, as mentioned below, to download a. ChromeDriver  which is compatible with the Chrome browser on your system:

1. Firstly, to check the Chrome browser version on your machine, click on the three dots on the right top corner of the browser

2. Secondly, click on Help in the menu.

3. Thirdly, click on About Google Chrome in the sub-menu.

4. After clicking the "About Google Chrome" option, the following page will open. Consequently, you will get the Chrome version details as in the image below:

Now, as we have got the Chrome browser version so, we can download the compatible ChromeDriver. Additionally, to download ChromeDriver, navigate to the link of the official ChromeDriver website. Follow the steps as mentioned below to download the ChromeDriver executable file:

1. On the ChromeDriver download page, there will be links for different ChromeDriver version. Based on your Chrome browser version, download the corresponding ChromeDriver, as marked in the below image. Subsequently, click on the ChromeDriver version that you need to download. As we had the Chrome browser version as "84 ", so we will download the corresponding ChromeDriver.

2. Secondly, clicking on the "ChromeDriver 84.0.4147.30 " link will take you to the ChromeDriver index page. Here, you will get different options of ChromeDriver based on your operating system. Additionally, for the Windows operating system, you can choose the Win32 version as marked in the below image. Yes, even if you have a 64-bit Windows installed on your system, the Win32 version will work fine.

3. Thirdly, once the download is complete, extract the zip file and place the "chromedriver.exe"  at any preferred location on your system.

Now that we have downloaded the ChromeDriver, we will open Eclipse and create a new java project. Moreover, we will add all the selenium dependencies to the project. Additionally, to know more about setting up Selenium with Eclipse, you can visit our previous tutorial on the same at Configure Selenium WebDriver.

As a next step, we need to make the downloaded ChromeDriver executable available to the Selenium tests. Subsequently, let's see how we can setup ChromeDriver, so as we can use the same in the Selenium test cases:

How to setup ChromeDriver on Windows?

To set up and configure the ChromeDriver with the Selenium, the ChromeDriver executable file should be accessible in the test script. Additionally, Selenium tests can access the ChromeDriver  if any of the following ways sets it up:

1. Setup ChromeDriver using System Properties in Environment Variables.
2. Setup ChromeDriver using System Properties in the test script.

Let’s understand all of these and try running our test code with Selenium 3 or Selenium 4.

How to setup ChromeDriver using System Properties in Environment Variables?

On the Windows operating system, one of the ways to declare system-level variables is by using Environment Variables. Users can define either user-level environment variables or system variables. Moreover, the variable defined here is accessible to all the programs running on the system. We can use the environment variables to set the path of the ChromeDriver. So, whenever we create an instance of the WebDriver, it will automatically detect the path of the ChromeDriver from the system variables and can use the same. Subsequently, let's have a look at steps through which we can do that.

1. First, we need to open the Environment Variable pop-up. To do that, click on the search bar and search for "Environment Variables". It will search and display "Edit environment variables for your account", as shown in the image below. After that, click on the "Open" to open the System Properties pop-up.

2. Secondly, the "System Properties " pop-up will open. In the pop-up, select the "Advanced " tab as marked by the arrow. After that, in the Advanced tab, click on the "Environment Variables " button.

3. Thirdly, this will open the "Environment Variables " pop-up. In the pop-up System variables section, look for the "path " variable marked in the below image. After that, click on the path variable to select it. Once selected, click on the "Edit " button as marked by the arrow.

4. Fourthly, once the "Edit environment variable " pops-up, click on the "New " button.

5. Fifthly, add the ChromeDriver's folder location to the path. We have placed our driver at the following location "C:\Selenium\chromedriver", so we have added the same as the path variable. Once done, click on the "OK " button as denoted by the arrow.

How to run Selenium tests on Chrome Browser using ChromeDriver?

Conclusively, we can now directly initialize the WebDriver  instance using the ChromeDriver, as shown below:

package demoPackage;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class ChromeDriverDemo {
	public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException{
		 
		 System.out.println("Execution after setting ChromeDriver path in System Variables");
		 WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
		 driver.get("https://demoqa.com");
		 Thread.sleep(3000);
		 driver.quit();
		 System.out.println("Execution complete");
		 
		 }

}

On executing the above code, you will see the results below.

Evidently from the console results, there is no WebDriver error, which implies that the WebDriver set up is correct. Moreover, you can see the print statements as the entry and exit points of our execution. Correspondingly you will be able to view the execution in your system.

How to initialize ChromeDriver using System Properties in the Selenium test script?

Instead of using the global instance of ChromeDriver, if we want to use a specific version of ChromeDriver, we can do the same by explicitly specifying the path of the ChromeDriver in the test script itself. In other words, we need to add a single line of code to set up the system properties for the ChromeDriver, as shown below:

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "<Path of the ChromeDriver Executable>");

Conclusively, let us modify the code we used above and see that we can launch the Chrome browser successfully. The modified code would look like this:

package demoPackage;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class ChromeDriverDemo {
	public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException{
		 
		 System.out.println("Execution after setting ChromeDriver path in System setProperty method");
		 System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "E:\\drivers\\ChromeDrivers\\85\\chromedriver.exe");
		 WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
		 driver.get("https://demoqa.com");
		 Thread.sleep(3000);
		 driver.quit();
		 System.out.println("Execution complete");
		 
		 }

}

You will see that demoqa.com  opens in the Chrome browser without any error and exception.

If you noticed, here we used ChromeDriver version 85, instead of the default global ChromerDriver version of 84. The execution logs indicate that our WebDriver session started with the print statement displayed right at the beginning. The lines highlighted in red are some browser logs corresponding to the browser session. Moreover, you can see the browser opening up in your system, and after the website opens, the browser session is closed.

How to install ChromeDriver on macOS?

The installation and setup of ChromeDriver on macOS is almost the same as that of the Windows platform. The only difference being the executable for macOS will be different, and the way we can include the ChromeDriver executable in the System’s PATH  variable is a bit different. Let’s see how we can install and setup the ChromeDriver on macOS :

How To Download ChromeDriver on macOS?

On macOS, we can download ChromeDriver using any of the following ways:

• Download executable file from the Chromium website
• Download using any package manager, such as Homebrew.

Let's understand the details of both of these ways of downloading and setting up ChromeDriver  on macOS :

How to download ChromeDriver for macOS from the Chromium website?

You can download the ChromerDrive for macOS, same as we did for the Windows platform, except for the difference that, now select the binary for the macOS platform as shown below:

It will download a zip file, which you can extract in any of the folders of your choice. After extracting, it will show the executable file of ChromeDriver, as shown below:

So, now you have the ChromeDriver executable file available on your machine, which we can use in our test scripts. Subsequently, let's see how to setup ChromeDriver  on macOS and use in the Selenium test scripts:

How To Set Up ChromeDriver on macOS?

Now that you have downloaded the ChromeDriver, the next step is to set it up to use it in your test scripts. On macOS  also, we can follow the same ways, as on Windows, to set up the ChromeDriver:

1. Setup ChromeDriver using the System’s PATH variable.
2. Setup ChromeDriver using System Properties in the test script.

The 2nd point is the same setup as the Windows platform, as we are using JAVA for test development, and JAVA being platform-independent, will have the same behavior across platforms. So, let's see how we can set up the ChromerDriver  using the System's PATH variable:

How to Setup ChromeDriver using the System’s PATH variable?

As we mentioned above, one of the easiest ways to make the executable available globally on the macOS is to copy the executable under any the folders which are already in the PATH variable. Let’s follow the steps mentioned below to achieve the same:

First, identify the folders included in the PATH variable using the command ‘echo $PATH ‘ on the terminal. It will give a sample output, as shown below:

2. Secondly, as we can see, multiple directories are already part of the PATH variable. Suppose we choose “/usr/local/bin” as a placeholder directory to hold the ChromeDriver executable.

3. Thirdly, copy the ChromeDriver  executable file from the downloaded directory to the “/usr/local/bin” directory using the mv command as shown below:

mv chromedriver /usr/local/bin/

Now your ChromeDriver is ready to be used in your Selenium test scripts. Consequently, now we will write a simple program and execute the same in the macOS platform.

package demoPackage;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class ChromeDriverDemo {
	public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException{
		 
		System.out.println("ChromeDriver execution on mac!!");
		 WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
		 driver.get("https://demoqa.com");
		 Thread.sleep(3000);
		 driver.quit();
		 System.out.println("Execution complete on macOS");
		 
	}
}

On executing the same, you can find the results in your console window:

You can see the execution happening successfully without any error. Both the print statements are getting displayed, which indicates that our execution did not face any error. So did you see how easy it was to run* ChromeDriver* tests in macOS? Unlike the Windows system, where you have to remember the path of your driver executable, just placing the driver at a location in macOS makes our lives so easy!

How to install ChromeDriver using Homebrew?

Homebrew is one of the package managers available on macOS, which can download any binaries which register as a package with Homebrew. Luckily ChromeDriver is available as a Homebrew package, and we can download and set up the same, with a straightforward command as below:

brew cask install chromedriver

When we run the above command, it will download and install the ChromeDriver in the "/usr/local/bin " directory, as can be validated from the following output of the above command:

As we can see that the latest stable version of ChromeDriver was downloaded and installed in the "/usr/local/bin" directory, which makes it part of the PATH variable and accessible to all the applications on the system.

So, this way, ChromeDriver installed and setup on macOS with a single command. Other package managers, such as NPM, also provides the capabilities to install ChromeDriver, which can be explored based on which package manager you are using on your machine.

Key Takeaways

• Chrome browser is one of the most popular browsers in terms of user share. Moreover, 2/3rd of the web users use it.
• Selenium's cross-browser functionality allows users to configure and run their Selenium tests with ChromeDriver to execute all tests on the Chrome browser.
• Additionally, ChromeDriver is a standalone server that interacts with Selenium WebDriver to execute all selenium tests on the Chrome browser.
• Moreover, ChromeDriver provides executable specific to each platform, such as Windows, macOS, etc., which can be downloaded and used for execution on Selenium tests on the Chrome browser.