# Selenium - Easy Web Automation with Python.

URL: https://onthegoalways.com/blog/selenium-automate-browser-tasks
Author: Sachin Ghait
Published: 2021-04-13
Updated: 2026-09-28
Category: Backend

> **TL;DR:** Selenium lets you control a browser programmatically with Python, turning multi-step manual tasks into a single command. This post demonstrates automating an everyday task -- opening an online epaper that normally requires opening the browser, searching, clicking through pages, and zooming. With Selenium and a chromedriver, you script the entire flow. The walkthrough covers setup, element selection, clicking, and handling browser interactions.

I went through a course on udemy ( Automate boring stuff with python ) back in 2018, from there I got that we can automate many tasks from daily life.

## What is Selenium?

Selenium is widely used in writing automated tests for web-applications.
Selenium lets you run an automated instance of web browser( chrome, firefox ), and gives you APIs so you can control the browser and webpage.

> "Selenium automates browsers. That's it!" — [selenium.dev](https://www.selenium.dev/)

**Version note:** the code below was written for Selenium 3. Since Selenium 4.6, Selenium Manager downloads the right browser driver for you, and the `executable_path` argument was removed in Selenium 4.10. On a current version, `webdriver.Firefox()` with no arguments is enough.


## How can Selenium automate a daily task?

Lets take a simple example of reading an online epaper.
Steps to get to last point are,

1. Open the browser.
2. Go to the epaper website ( readwhere.com in my case ).
3. Search for the newspaper name.
4. Click on "Read Now".
5. Skip sign in.
6. Maximize/zoom for better reading.

Doing this could easily take 3-5 minutes.
With selenium we can sum it up to a single command.

## Code walkthrough

1. I have taken a link to the newspaper name directly so we do not have to search for the newspaper.

```py{1,3-5}
url = 'https://www.readwhere.com/newspaper/deshonnati/Akola-Main/557?refquery=deshonnati%20akola'
```

2. Below snippet opens up a browser instance, you need to pass corresponding driver ( chrome-chromedriver, firefox-gecodriver )

```py{1,3-5}
browser = webdriver.Firefox(
  executable_path=r'/usr/local/bin/geckodriver')
```

3. In next step, we provide this browser which url it should load.

```py{1,3-5}
browser.get(url) # URL of newspaper
browser.maximize_window()
```

4. Then we tell browser to perform certain clicks.
   With `WebDriverWait` we tell browser to wait until the element appears on the screen and is clickable(`EC.element_to_be_clickable`).
   We search the element by its DOM path called XPath (`By.XPATH`), and then perform a click.

```py{1,3-5}
# Click on "READ NOW"
WebDriverWait(browser, 6).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable(
        (By.XPATH, '/html/body/div[4]/div/div/div[3]/div/div[2]/div[1]/div[3]/a'))).click()
```

```py{1,3-5}
# Click on "Skip Sign in"
WebDriverWait(browser, 6).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable(
        (By.XPATH, '//*[@id="skip-area-id"]'))).click()
```

```py{1,3-5}
# Click on "Zoom + button"
WebDriverWait(browser, 6).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable(
        (By.XPATH, '/html/body/div[7]/div[1]/div[1]/div[4]/div/button[1]'))).click()
```

## Common problems and fixes

### How to find xpath of the browser element.

1. Right click on the element, select `inspect element`.
2. In the elements tab right click on the element and select `copy`, then select `Copy XPath`

![Copying an XPath for an element from browser developer tools](/assets/find-xpath.webp)

### Run the browser in headless ( invisible ) mode.

```py{1,3-5}
options = Options()
options.headless = True
browser = webdriver.Firefox(options=options,
   executable_path=r'/usr/local/bin/geckodriver')
```

## End Result

![screengrab](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ssghait007/pyclone/master/images/sg.gif)

Find the [complete pyclone source code on GitHub](https://github.com/ssghait007/pyclone/blob/e967c5c72047f056c73f4ed129653145b9f4a720/pyclone/__main__.py#L31)

Some other ideas you can try out.

- Change config on router ( block/unblock certain domains, Limit speed on certain devices ). You will need to supply username and password for router in input boxes(`sendkeys()` can be used for that). Make sure you are not publishing these username and password in public repos.
- Clock in/out i.e. time booking for employees on company website. ( Again make sure to not disclose username and password on public repos, pass it from environment variables )

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Do I still need to download geckodriver or chromedriver?

Not on Selenium 4.6 or newer. Selenium Manager finds or downloads a matching driver automatically.

### Why does my XPath stop working after a site update?

Absolute XPaths like `/html/body/div[4]/...` break when the page layout changes. Prefer `By.ID`, `By.NAME` or a short CSS selector when the element has one.

### How do I run the browser headless in Selenium 4?

Use `options.add_argument('-headless')` for Firefox or `options.add_argument('--headless')` for Chrome, then pass `options=options` to the driver.

## References

- [Selenium documentation](https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/)
- [Selenium Manager](https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/selenium_manager/)
- [Selenium: Waiting strategies](https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/waits/)