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What is ChromeDriver C# and How Do You Run It for Selenium WebDriver?

Cheryl Waller
What is ChromeDriver C# and How Do You Run It for Selenium WebDriver?

When it comes to web test automation, Selenium is one of the most popular options. And a big part of Selenium is the WebDriver, which allows you to control a web browser.

Just so, ChromeDriver C# is the C# version of the WebDriver that lets you control a Google Chrome browser. In this post, we’ll give a brief overview of what ChromeDriver is and how you can run it for Selenium WebDriver.

3 Uses of Google Chrome Driver C#

Here are a few popular things that people use the new ChromeDriver for:

1) Testing Web Applications

For test automation, Google Chrome Driver is one of the most popular options. That’s because it allows you to test web applications using a headless browser. Plus, it’s beneficial for several reasons, as it:

2) Web Scraping

While most people use the web through a GUI, a console application can be more beneficial. For example, if you need to gather data from various sources on the web, then using a headless browser is the way to go.

With Chrome Driver, you can load up the page. Then, execute the necessary Javascript to extract the data you need. Also, a console app can automate tasks that would otherwise be time-consuming.

And so, if you need to scrape data from a website, then using ChromeDriver is the way to go. Plus, setting up a console application is a relatively straightforward process. All you need is the ChromeDriver executable and the following code working with Chrome Driver:

3) Generating Accessibility Reports

With ChromeDriver, you can quickly generate these reports with a few clicks. Just open Internet Explorer and go to the website you want to test. Click the Generate Report button.

The report will provide information about how accessible the website is for users. Use this information to make changes to the website so that it is more accessible for everyone.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Install ChromeDriver to Any Chrome Browser Version

Here’s how to install ChromeDriver on any machine running Windows:

Step 1: Download the zip file from the Selenium website.

Once you have the zip file, unzip it and open up the folder. In the folder, you should see an .exe file called chromedriver.exe.

Before using ChromeDriver, ensure your machine has the .NET Framework installed. If you don’t have the .NET Framework installed, you can download it from Microsoft’s website.

Step 2: Open up Visual Studio, then create a new project.

When prompted, choose to create a console application. In the console application, add a reference to WebDriver.dll, located in the Selenium folder you unzipped earlier. Next, add a using statement for OpenQA.Selenium at the top of your program.

Step 3: Start writing code to control your browser.

Create an instance of the ChromeDriver class. This class takes as an argument the path to the location of chromedriver .exe file on your machine:

ChromeDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(“path/to/chromedriver”);

Step 4: Begin interacting with elements on web pages.

For example, let’s say you want to find the search box on Google’s homepage and enter a query:

IWebElement element = driver.FindElementById(“lst-ib”); // find search boxelement.SendKeys(“selenium”); // enter querydriver.FindElementByName(“btnK”).Click(); // click search button

3 Ways of Running ChromeDriver for Selenium WebDriver

Before running Chrome Driver, let’s first look at what you’ll need to set up on your machine. Here’s what you’ll need:

On top of that, there are many ways to launch ChromeDriver for Selenium WebDriver. Here are some methods:

Test Explorer

This method is the easiest way to run ChromeDriver for Selenium WebDriver. Below are the steps for using Test Explorer with Selenium WebDriver:

  1. Download the Selenium WebDriver for your specific version of Google Chrome.
  2. Unzip the file, then save it to your computer.
  3. Open Google Chrome and type this: “chrome://settings/content.” Doing so will open the Content Settings page.
  4. Scroll down to the “JavaScript” section and click on the “Manage exceptions” button.
  5. Add a new exception for the location of the Selenium WebDriver files. For example, C:\WebDriver\chromedriver.exe.
  6. Now open Test Explorer and click the “Run all tests” button. Doing so will start Selenium and run all of your tests automatically.

Selenium C#

Another way to launch ChromeDriver for Selenium WebDriver is through Selenium C#.

  1. Go to Tools. From there, click on NuGet Package Manager. After that, click Manage NuGet Packages for Solution in Visual Studio.
  2. Search for Selenium and install the latest version.
  3. Open your test project and add the following using the statement:

using OpenQA.Selenium;

using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome

  1. Instantiate a ChromeDriver instance and call:

driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(“http://www.google.com”)

Visual Studio

A third option is to run ChromeDriver for Selenium WebDriver directly from Visual Studio.

  1. Download the chromedriver.exe file from here and save it to your computer.
  2. Launch Visual Studio, and create a new C# Console Application project.
  3. In the project, add a reference to the Selenium WebDriver library. Go to Project in Solution Explorer -> Add Reference -> Browse and select the Selenium library file (WebDriver.dll).
  4. In the Program.cs file, add the following using statements at the top:

using OpenQA.Selenium;

using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome;

  1. Copy and paste the following code into your static void main string:

IWebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(“http://www.google.com”);

Console.WriteLine(driver.Title); // Prints “Google”

driver.Quit(); // Closes all chrome windows opened by WebDriver

Console.ReadKey(); // Keeps console open until you hit enter/return

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