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Home Documentation Automate Selenium 4

Getting Started with Selenium 4

Learn about the key changes coming with Version 4 of Selenium and the changes you need to make to your test suite.

Introduction

Selenium 4 is launching soon, with that Selenium Webdriver will be completely W3C standardized. Browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Edge will also follow W3C standardization, therefore browser drivers will interact with Selenium WebDriver in W3C standard protocol.
The capabilities format will change in the new standard.

Why are these changes being made?

To bring in standard and stability. Few selenium commands work differently on different browsers. As a user, you have to modify your code to deal with those changes. This will bring in standard and stability and will not require you to modify your code to work with different browsers.

What does it mean to me?

The short answer is that your tests will continue to work. BrowserStack is backward compatible to support Selenium 4. We have ensured backward compatibility of most of the Selenium commands. As Selenium 4 is released, browsers will turn off support for legacy JSONWire protocol. Few commands such as /touch will fail on the latest browser versions. You should switch to the latest Selenium WebDriver version to avoid any impact and continue using the latest browser and driver versions. By using the latest Selenium version you can stay ahead and use all the new features of Selenium 4.

Refer to Capabilities Generator for a complete list of capabilities and code generator.

Updating your Selenium test suite

Use the Selenium language binding versions that support the new W3C protocol. Download the language bindings from Selenium HQ. When you start a session, you set Selenium capabilities and BrowserStack specific capabilities. The capability format has changed.

You can review and generate all Selenium and BrowserStack capabilities in W3C format with our Capabilities Generator.

Updating standard Selenium capabilities

The capability format for Selenium 4 has changed. For example, "version" is now passed as "browserVersion". Refer here for the list of supported capabilities in Selenium 4. The Selenium WebDriver will drop any unsupported capability.

Changes in Selenium capabilities names:

Legacy/JSONWire Protocol WebDriver Protocol
version browserVersion
platform platformName
acceptSslCerts acceptInsecurecerts
- pageLoadStratergy
- setWindowRect
- timeouts
- strictFileInteractability
- unhandledPromptBehavior

Updating BrowserStack custom capabilities

BrowserStack capabilities need to be set in "bstack:options" key. There are changes in the capabilities format. For example "browserstack.user" will be passed as "userName" and "browserstack.key" will be passed as "accessKey". BrowserStack also supports browser specific configuration such as using a custom driver version. Such a capability needs to be set inside "bstack:options" hash, with key as "chrome", "firefox", "ie", "edge" or "safari".

List of frequently used BrowserStack capabilities.

Legacy/JSONWire Protocol WebDriver Protocol
browserstack.user userName
name sessionName
browserstack.selenium_version seleniumVersion
project projectName
os_version osVersion
os os
browserstack.local local
build buildName
browserstack.key accessKey

Refer capability builder for the complete list

Example

Refer the below section on how capabilities are passed now, and with W3C protocol.

Legacy Protocol

                                
DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
caps.setCapability("os", "Windows");
caps.setCapability("os_version", "10");
caps.setCapability("browser", "Chrome");
caps.setCapability("browser_version", "70.0");
caps.setCapability("project", "PROJECT_NAME");
caps.setCapability("build", "BUILD_NAME");
caps.setCapability("name", "SESSION_NAME");
caps.setCapability("browserstack.local", "true");
caps.setCapability("browserstack.debug", "true");
caps.setCapability("browserstack.console", "info");
caps.setCapability("browserstack.networkLogs", "true");
caps.setCapability("browserstack.chrome.driver", "2.45");
caps.setCapability("browserstack.user", "USERNAME");
caps.setCapability("browserstack.key", "ACCESS_KEY");
                            
                                
var capabilities = {
    'os' : 'Windows',
    'os_version' : '10',
    'browserName' : 'Chrome',
    'browser_version' : '70.0',
    'project' : 'PROJECT_NAME',
    'build' : 'BUILD_NAME',
    'name' : 'SESSION_NAME',
    'browserstack.local' : 'true',
    'browserstack.debug' : 'true',
    'browserstack.console' : 'info',
    'browserstack.networkLogs' : 'true',
    'browserstack.chrome.driver' : '2.45',
    'browserstack.user' : 'USERNAME',
    'browserstack.key' : 'ACCESS_KEY'
}

                            
                                
desired_cap = {
    'os' : 'Windows',
    'os_version' : '10',
    'browser' : 'Chrome',
    'browser_version' : '70.0',
    'project' : 'PROJECT_NAME',
    'build' : 'BUILD_NAME',
    'name' : 'SESSION_NAME',
    'browserstack.local' : 'true',
    'browserstack.debug' : 'true',
    'browserstack.console' : 'info',
    'browserstack.networkLogs' : 'true',
    'browserstack.chrome.driver' : '2.45',
    'browserstack.user' : 'USERNAME',
    'browserstack.key' : 'ACCESS_KEY'
}

                            
                                
DesiredCapabilities capability = new DesiredCapabilities();
capability.SetCapability("os", "Windows");
capability.SetCapability("os_version", "10");
capability.SetCapability("browser", "Chrome");
capability.SetCapability("browser_version", "70.0");
capability.SetCapability("project", "PROJECT_NAME");
capability.SetCapability("build", "BUILD_NAME");
capability.SetCapability("name", "SESSION_NAME");
capability.SetCapability("browserstack.local", "true");
capability.SetCapability("browserstack.debug", "true");
capability.SetCapability("browserstack.console", "info");
capability.SetCapability("browserstack.networkLogs", "true");
 
capability.SetCapability("browserstack.chrome.driver", "2.45");
capability.SetCapability("browserstack.user", "USERNAME");
capability.SetCapability("browserstack.key", "ACCESS_KEY");

                            
                                
$caps = array(
    "os" => "Windows",
    "os_version" => "10",
    "browser" => "Chrome",
    "browser_version" => "70.0",
    "project" => "PROJECT_NAME",
    "build" => "BUILD_NAME",
    "name" => "SESSION_NAME",
    "browserstack.local" => "true",
    "browserstack.debug" => "true",
    "browserstack.console" => "info",
    "browserstack.networkLogs" => "true",
    "browserstack.chrome.driver" => "2.45",
    "browserstack.user" => "USERNAME",
    "browserstack.key" => "ACCESS_KEY"
)

                            
                                
caps = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.new
caps["os"] = "Windows"
caps["os_version"] = "10"
caps["browser"] = "Chrome"
caps["browser_version"] = "70.0"
caps["project"] = "PROJECT_NAME"
caps["build"] = "BUILD_NAME"
caps["name"] = "SESSION_NAME"
caps["browserstack.local"] = "true"
caps["browserstack.debug"] = "true"
caps["browserstack.console"] = "info"
caps["browserstack.networkLogs"] = "true"
caps["browserstack.chrome.driver"] = "2.45"
caps["browserstack.user"] = "USERNAME"
caps["browserstack.key"] = "ACCESS_KEY"

                            
                                
my $extraCaps = {
    "os" => "Windows",
    "os_version" => "10",
    "browser" => "Chrome",
    "browser_version" => "70.0",
    "project" => "PROJECT_NAME",
    "build" => "BUILD_NAME",
    "name" => "SESSION_NAME",
    "browserstack.local" => "true",
    "browserstack.debug" => "true",
    "browserstack.console" => "info",
    "browserstack.networkLogs" => "true",
    "browserstack.chrome.driver" => "2.45",
    "browserstack.user" => "USERNAME",
    "browserstack.key" => "ACCESS_KEY"
}

W3C Protocol

                                
DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
capabilities.setCapability("browserName", "Chrome");
capabilities.setCapability("browserVersion", "70.0");
HashMap<String, Object> browserstackOptions = new HashMap<String, Object>();
browserstackOptions.put("os", "Windows");
browserstackOptions.put("osVersion", "10");
browserstackOptions.put("projectName", "PROJECT_NAME");
browserstackOptions.put("buildName", "BUILD_NAME");
browserstackOptions.put("sessionName", "SESSION_NAME");
browserstackOptions.put("local", "true");
browserstackOptions.put("debug", "true");
browserstackOptions.put("consoleLogs", "info");
browserstackOptions.put("networkLogs", "true");
browserstackOptions.put("browserstack", browserstackOptions);
HashMap<String, Object> chromeOptions = new HashMap<String, Object>();
chromeOptions.put("driver", "2.45");
browserstackOptions.put("chrome", chromeOptions);
capabilities.setCapability("bstack:options", browserstackOptions);

                            
                                
var capabilities = {
    'browserName': 'Chrome',
    'browserVersion': '70.0',
    'bstack:options': {
        'os': 'Windows',
        'osVersion': '10',
        'projectName': 'PROJECT_NAME',
        'buildName': 'BUILD_NAME',
        'sessionName': 'SESSION_NAME',
        'local': 'true',
        'debug': 'true',
        'consoleLogs': 'info',
        'networkLogs': 'true',
        'userName': 'USERNAME',
        'accessKey': 'ACCESS_KEY',
        'chrome': {
            'driver': '2.45',
        }
    }
}

                            
                                
desired_cap = {
    'browserName' : 'Chrome',
    'browserVersion' : '70.0',
    'bstack:options' : {
        'os' : 'Windows',
        'osVersion' : '10',
        'projectName' : 'PROJECT_NAME',
        'buildName' : 'BUILD_NAME',
        'sessionName' : 'SESSION_NAME',
        'local' : 'true',
        'debug' : 'true',
        'consoleLogs' : 'info',
        'networkLogs' : 'true',
        'userName' : 'USERNAME',
        'accessKey' : 'ACCESS_KEY',
        'chrome' : {
            'driver' : '2.45',
        }
    }
 
}

                            
                                
DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
capabilities.setCapability("browserName", "Chrome");
capabilities.setCapability("browserVersion", "70.0");
Dictionary<string, object> .browserstackOptions = new Dictionary<string, object>();
browserstackOptions.Add("os", "Windows");
browserstackOptions.Add("osVersion", "10");
browserstackOptions.Add("projectName", "PROJECT_NAME");
browserstackOptions.Add("buildName", "BUILD_NAME");
browserstackOptions.Add("sessionName", "SESSION_NAME");
browserstackOptions.Add("local", "true");
browserstackOptions.Add("debug", "true");
browserstackOptions.Add("consoleLogs", "info");
browserstackOptions.Add("networkLogs", "true");
browserstackOptions.Add("userName", "USERNAME");
browserstackOptions.Add("accessKey", "ACCESS_KEY");
browserstackOptions.Add("browserstack", browserstackOptions);
Dictionary<string, object> .chromeOptions = new Dictionary<string, object>();
chromeOptions.Add("driver", "2.45");
browserstackOptions.Add("chrome", chromeOptions);
capabilities.setCapability("bstack:options", browserstackOptions);

                            
                                
$caps = array(
    "browserName" => "Chrome",
    "browserVersion" => "70.0",
    'bstack:options' => array(
        "os" => "Windows",
        "osVersion" => "10",
        "projectName" => "PROJECT_NAME",
        "buildName" => "BUILD_NAME",
        "sessionName" => "SESSION_NAME",
        "local" => "true",
        "debug" => "true",
        "consoleLogs" => "info",
        "networkLogs" => "true",
        "browserstack.user" => "USERNAME",
        "browserstack.key" => "ACCESS_KEY",
        'chrome' => (
            "driver" => "2.45",
        )
    )
)

                            
                                
capabilities = {
    'browserName' => 'Chrome',
    'browserVersion' => '70.0',
    'bstack:options' => {
        'os' => 'Windows',
        'osVersion' => '10',
        'projectName' => 'PROJECT_NAME',
        'buildName' => 'BUILD_NAME',
        'sessionName' => 'SESSION_NAME',
        'local' => 'true',
        'debug' => 'true',
        'consoleLogs' => 'info',
        'networkLogs' => 'true',
        'userName' => 'USERNAME',
        'accessKey' => 'ACCESS_KEY',
        'chrome' => {
            'driver' => '2.45',
        }
    }
     
}

                            
                                
my $extraCaps = {
    "browserName" => "Chrome",
    "browserVersion" => "70.0",
    'bstack:options' => {
        "os" => "Windows",
        "osVersion" => "10",
        "projectName" => "PROJECT_NAME",
        "buildName" => "BUILD_NAME",
        "sessionName" => "SESSION_NAME",
        "local" => "true",
        "debug" => "true",
        "consoleLogs" => "info",
        "networkLogs" => "true",
        "userName" => "USERNAME",
        "accessKey" => "ACCESS_KEY",
        'chrome' => {
            "driver" => "2.45",
        }
    }  
}