Selenium Introduction

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Selenium is an open-source automation framework used widely for automating web applications on multiple browsers like Chrome, Firefox and IE on various platforms.

Selenium first came to life in 2004 when Jason Huggins tested an internal application at ThoughtWorks.

Selenium is not just a single tool but a suite of software, each catering to different testing needs of an organization. It has four components: Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Selenium Remote Control (RC), WebDriver, and Selenium Grid.

Why Selenium?

  1. Open Source: Since Selenium is open-source, there is no licensing cost, a significant advantage over other testing tools.
  2. Support Many Programming Languages: Using Selenium, you can write your test in any of these programming languages: Java, Python, C#, PHP, Ruby, Perl & .Net.
  3. Support Multiple OS: You can execute your test on any OS: Windows, Mac, or Linux.
  4. Cross Browser Testing: Tests can be carried out using any browser: Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, or Opera.
  5. Test Framework Integration: It can be integrated with tools such as TestNG, NUnit and JUnit for managing test cases and generating reports.
  6. Continuous Testing: You can Integrate Selenium with Jenkins, Travis, and Docker to achieve Continuous Testing.
  7. Record and Play: Using Selenium IDE, you can record and play user actions using Firefox and Chrome Plugins.