This is great for users, but painful for developers needing to reproduce a bug report in an older Chrome version.Ī more specific example of this problem is when you want to use ChromeDriver for browser automation. Google intentionally doesn’t make versioned Chrome downloads available, since users shouldn’t have to care about version numbers-they should always get updated to the latest version as soon as possible. # Versioned browser binariesĪuto-update aside, you might also have found it hard to find a Chrome binary with a specific version. This is the fundamental mismatch between what’s good for regular browser users versus what’s good for developers doing automated testing. As a result, you may not want to use your regular Chrome installation for automated testing. None of this is possible with an auto-updating browser binary.

You want to pin a specific browser version and check that version number into your source code repository, so that you can check out old commits and branches and re-run the tests against the browser binary from that point in time.

You want consistent, reproducible results across repeated test runs-but this may not happen if the browser executable or binary decides to update itself in between two runs.

However, as a developer running a suite of end-to-end tests you might have an entirely different perspective: Users are happy to know they’re running an up-to-date and secure browser version including modern Web Platform features, browser features, and bug fixes at all times.

One of Chrome’s most notable features is its ability to auto-update. # Auto-update: great for users, painful for developers Today, we’re announcing a change that hopefully eases some of this pain. At the same time, setting up an adequate browser testing environment is notoriously difficult, so much so that it’s consistently reported as a top web developer pain point.

# Backgroundīrowser testing is a vital component of creating a high-quality web experience, regardless of whether it is done manually or automatically. Chrome for Testing has been created purely for browser automation and testing purposes, and is not suitable for daily browsing.

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