Today, every business needs high-quality software in less time, and to achieve high-quality software, organizations need effective software testing by leveraging automation testing. With agile and DevOps methodologies on the go, software automation testing is taking new heights. The test automation process helps to quicken the testing process with reusable test suites, and QA testers use many test automation frameworks.

Table of Content:

1. Selenium Tool Overview
2. What are the major differences between Selenium 2 and Selenium 3?
3. What is Selenium 4?
4. What is the difference between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4?
5. What are the new features of Selenium 4?
6. What is deprecated and changed in Selenium 4?
7. How can TestingXperts (Tx) help businesses with their Selenium Automation Testing needs?
8. Conclusion

Selenium Tool Overview

Though there are varieties of automation frameworks available, one framework that is widely used by testing teams across the globe for automation testing is the Selenium framework. Different versions of Selenium released in the market include Selenium 1 (Selenium RC), Selenium 2, Selenium 3, and the recently updated Selenium 4 beta. Selenium tool has a marked presence in the automation testing world due to its open-source nature and numerous features that make the testing process faster than other tools.

Selenium is the most preferred tool suite used to automate web application tests. The tool can operate across different browsers and operating systems. Selenium is an automation test suite that has various components given below:

– Selenium Core

– Selenium RC

– Selenium IDE

– Selenium Grid

– Selenium Webdriver

Selenium 2 and Selenium 3 have been in use for many years now. There are some differences between them, given in the tabular form below. 

What are the major differences between Selenium 2 and Selenium 3?

What is Selenium 4?

Selenium 4 Beta 1 is the latest version of Selenium released on February 15, 2021. This new tool suite has advanced features such as Selenium grid, W3C compliance, advanced IDE, New APIs, and many more. Selenium 4 is a suite of tools that has various components in it, as given below:

Selenium WebDriver

It is an open-source API that allows the creation of robust browser-based regression automation suites and tests, scales, and distributes scripts across many environments. The WebDriver also allows users to interact with the browser like real users.

Selenium IDE

It is a Chrome and Firefox add-on that simply records and plays back the user’s interactions with the browser. 

Selenium Grid

It save time by distributing and running tests on multiple browsers, operating systems, and machines. It enables the management of multiple environments from a central point.

What is the difference between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4?

Typically, there are some significant differences between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4 listed below:

What are the new features of Selenium 4?

1. WebDriver became a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Standardization:

• Selenium WebDriver is now a W3C Standardized, and this WebDriver provides a friendly and flexible API for browser automation

• W3C standard encourages compatibility across various software implementations of WebDriver and API.

• Most of the W3C standards revolve around the standardization of web technologies, making the framework more stable and reducing complexities across browsers.

2. Selenium Grid enhanced with updates:

• The earlier versions of Selenium Grid were complex, based on a Hub and Node(s) architecture. The Hub and Node(s) must be need to be separately started when performing automation tests.

• In Selenium 4, Hub and Node (s) are packed in a single jar file, which means once the server starts, it acts as both Hub and Node.

• The Grid also supports IPV6 addresses, allowing its users to communicate with the Grid using the HTTPS protocol with support for TLS connections.

• Selenium Grid has a more scalable and traceable infrastructure that supports four processes: Router, Session Map, Distributor, and Node.

• The new Selenium Grid comes with Docker support, allowing testers and developers to spin up containers rather than setting up heavy virtual machines.

The above feature gives users the flexibe to deploy Selenium Grid on Kubernetes. Selenium Grid 4 can be benefit and result in the DevOps process as it supports tools like AWS, Azure, and more.

3. Selenium 4 IDE upgraded:

• Selenium IDE is a record and playback tool available as an add-on for Firefox in the earlier Selenium versions. Still it got deprecated as the latest Firefox versions were standardized under the Web Extension Mechanism.

• The Selenium 4 version includes it as an add-on for major web browsers, such as Firefox, Chrome, MS Edge, etc.

• The latest update has a user interface to deliver an intuitive user experience, and it also comes with a SIDE tool, i.e., Selenium IDE runner, that allows QAs to run projects on a Node.js platform.

• This feature enables QA teams to run cross-browser tests on local or Cloud Selenium Grid. Its improved control flow mechanism allows testers to write better “while” and “if” conditions.

• Another feature includes the code for test cases recorded using the updated Selenium IDE, which can be exported to the desired programming languages like Java, C#, Python, .NET, and JavaScript, thus giving more flexibility to testers.

4. Relative Locators for automation scripts

• Selenium 4 brought an easy way of locating elements with the inclusion of relative locators.

• Relative locators, also called Friendly locators, help locate WebElements near to, left of, right of, above, and below a specified element.

• It supports the usage of withTagName (in Selenium 4 Java) or with_tag_name (in Selenium 4 Python). It helps locate web elements based on the visual location relative to other DOM elements.

5. Chrome Debugging Protocol (CDP)

• Selenium 4 provides native support for Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) through the DevTools interface.

• It allows QAs to use Chrome development properties like Fetch, Network, Profiler, Performance, Application cache, and more.

• This feature helps developers and QAs to test and resolve critical bugs for specific web pages faster and on the fly.

• QA teams can also leverage the APIs offered by Chrome DevTools to simulate poor network conditions and perform geolocation testing.

• This feature also allows testers to check how the product performs under varying network conditions, such as 3G, 4G, 5G, etc.

6. Multiple Windows and Tabs Management

• While testing, software testers must switch between multiple windows, tabs, or applications in a single test flow.

• In the earlier versions of Selenium, it was not easy to manage multiple windows or tabs, as it required testers to create a new Web Driver object. Post which used to switch to the new window (or tab) using the unique WindowHandle to perform subsequent actions in that window (or tab).

• But this has improved in Selenium 4. The latest version of Selenium comes with a new API – newWindow that allows testers to create and switch to a new window/tab without creating a new WebDriver object in a single test flow or session.

7. Telemetry and GraphQL:

A framework called Open Telemetry has been added to the Selenium Grid. This feature brings more observability into Grid as it allows testers to see what’s happening inside the Grid, especially when something goes wrong while running the test.

Also, Grid now has a new front-end console, which is powered by a GraphQL endpoint. It allows testers to run a GraphQL query against the Selenium grid, either distributed or on the local machine. This feature helps testers extract useful metrics and information from the Grid to fulfill monitoring needs.

Joe Colantonio, in his latest article, “What is Selenium 4? The latest in Automated Browser Testing,” has explained all the above features and the importance of Selenium 4 in detail.

8. Improved Documentation:

With the earlier versions of Selenium, users faced many difficulties with the documentation part, as there were some shortcomings in Selenium’s documentation capabilities.

This has significantly improved in the latest versions of Selenium. Selenium 4.0 provides better documentation capabilities.

• Its documentation part has been completely revamped with a neat UI that allows users to navigate to the desired section of the page easily and covers all information about tools and APIs that come under the Selenium umbrella. 

• This will help testers learn about all the features required to start selenium testing.

What is deprecated and changed in Selenium 4?

1. Deprecation of Desired Capabilities

The test script primarily used Desired Capabilities to define the test environment (browser name, version, operating system) for executing tests on Selenium Grid. This has now been replaced with Options. This means testers must create an Options object, set test requirements, and pass the object on to the Driver constructor. Below are the Options objects that have been included in Selenium 4.0 

Firefox – FirefoxOptions

Chrome – ChromeOptions

Internet Explorer (IE) – InternetExplorerOptions

Microsoft Edge – EdgeOptions

Safari – SafariOptions

2. Changes in the Action Class

The action class is used to simulate input actions from a keyboard or mouse on specific web elements, such as Left-click, Right-click, Double-click, etc. 

The following changes have been made to the Action Class in Selenium 4.0

• click(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).click() {}

• clickAndHold(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).clickAndHold()

• contextClick(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).contextClick()

• doubleClick(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(element).doubleClick()

• release(), which was ealier a part of org.openqa.selenium.interactions.ButtonReleaseAction class has now been moved to the Action class as per the new update of Selenium 4.0

3. Deprecation of FindsBy

In the older version of Selenium, FindsBy interfaces were part of the org.openqa.selenium.internal package. It contains findElement(By) and findElements(By) methods, implemented by the RemoteWebDriver class. However, these have now been deprecated in Selenium 4.0.

4. Changes in FluentWait

In Selenium 4.0, the methods withTimeout() and pollingEvery() that are a part of the FluentWait class have been modified. The pollingEvery() method only accepts one parameter – Duration that can be in Seconds, MilliSeconds, NanoSeconds, Hours, Days, etc. Similarly, the withTimeOut() method also accepts only one parameter – Duration.

How can TestingXperts (Tx) help businesses with their Selenium Automation Testing needs?

Enterprises must note that Selenium testing should be done by experienced Selenium test automation engineers. Businesses can partner with an experienced automation engineer from an independent testing services provider to reap the full benefits of Selenium testing. 

TestingXperts (Tx) is a NextGen QA and Software testing company with dedicated teams and core expertise in industry-leading tools like Selenium, HP UFT, Coded UI, TestComplete, Ranorex, Appium, etc. We have a global presence with offices in the USA, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, and Singapore, and test labs strategically placed in multiple locations in India (Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Bangalore).

Conclusion

Today, almost every business has realized the importance of automation testing. And to fulfil this growing demand for automation testing, numerous test automation tools and frameworks are available today. Among all the available automation testing frameworks and tools, one tool that is widely used by testers all across the globe is Selenium. Recently, a new update of Selenium was rolled out in the market, which gained a lot of attention from the audience. The latest Selenium version, i.e., Selenium 4.0, has several additional benefits like seamless integration, parallel testing, cross-browser testing, better documentation, etc., that make Selenium testing much easier. Businesses must read all the features and differentiators of Selenium 4.0 as mentioned in this blog before investing in any automation testing framework or tool.