Firefox is my personal favorite browser, due in part to all of the great extensions available for it. When you try running Firefox with Selenium, however, you’ll probably find that Firefox is missing the extensions you have installed and normally use when browsing. Luckily, there’s a quick and easy way to install all your favorite […]
Selenium
Using Headless Firefox with Selenium in Python
Headless Firefox and regular Firefox have the same capabilities, and running them with Selenium is a very similar process. The difference is that Headless Firefox does not generate any sort of user interface. In other words, no browser is visibly launched. If you happen to be web scraping with Selenium, it’s often helpful to see […]
Using Headless Chrome with Selenium in Python
Headless Chrome and regular Chrome have the same capabilities, and running them with Selenium is a very similar process. The difference is that Headless Chrome does not generate any sort of user interface. In other words, no browser is visibly launched. If you happen to be web scraping with Selenium, it’s often helpful to see […]
Quick Guide to Installing Selenium (Firefox version)
To set up Selenium, you’ll first need to have Python installed. Check out my other posts if you need help with that. Next, you need to install Selenium. To do this, simply open up your Windows command prompt or Mac/Linux terminal and enter the command: Now that Selenium is installed, you need to pick a […]
Selenium + PhantomJS Tutorial
WARNING: Selenium support for PhantomJS has been deprecated. Both Firefox and Chrome now support headless capabilities. Use one of those instead. This post borrows from the previous selenium-based post here. If you have heard of PhantomJS, would like to try it out, and are curious to see how it performs against other browsers such as […]
Scraping Financial Data with Selenium
Note: The following post is a significant step up in difficulty from the previous selenium-based post, Automate Your Browser: A Guided Selenium Adventure. Please see the start of that post for links on getting selenium set up if this is your first time using it. If you really do need financial data, there are likely […]
Automate Your Browser: A Guided Selenium Adventure
Prerequisites: Have Python/Anaconda and Selenium installed. See the previous intro to Selenium if you’re not familiar with it. The full code for this post is included at the end. You might find it fun to first run the entire script and watch how it works before jumping in and following along with the post. And […]
Let Your Browser Do the Work for You: Writing Your First Selenium Script
Prerequisites: Have the Selenium Python package working on your machine. See this guide for help. If you ever find yourself doing something repetitive online, there’s probably a Python package that can help you automate the process. One that’s extremely simple to use and flashy to show off to others is called Selenium. Selenium basically allows […]
Quick Guide to Installing Selenium (Google Chrome version)
To set up Selenium, you’ll first need to have Python installed. Check out my other posts if you need help with that. Next, you need to install Selenium. To do this, simply open up your Windows command prompt or Mac/Linux terminal and enter the command: Now that Selenium is installed, you need to pick a […]