How to Set Up Selenium for Python: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

Preface

Selenium is a tool for testing web applications. It runs directly in the browser, mimicking real user actions, and can automatically record actions and generate test scripts in languages such as .Net, Java, and Perl.

1. Browser

Selenium supports many browsers; beginners are advised to start with Firefox because it works well with the FireBug plugin for element inspection. Chrome, IE, Safari are also supported but require their respective drivers.

2. Python

Install Python on Windows by downloading the installer from the official website and running it.

3. Selenium

After setting up Python, install Selenium using pip:

pip install selenium

4. FireBug Plugin

FireBug is a Firefox extension that helps locate page elements, which is crucial for Selenium testing. Install it by opening Firefox, navigating to Add‑ons → Extensions, searching for "firebug", and clicking Install.

After installation, press F12 to verify FireBug is active.

5. Driver Installation (Windows)

Firefox: Newer Firefox versions require geckodriver. Download, unzip, place the executable in your project folder, and add its path to the system environment variables.

Chrome: Download chromedriver (32‑bit version) from the official mirror and follow the same steps as for geckodriver.

IE: Download IEDriverServer (choose 32‑bit or 64‑bit as needed) from the Selenium release page and add it to the PATH.

6. IDE Selection

You can use Python's built‑in IDLE, or editors such as Sublime Text or PyCharm for writing Selenium scripts.

7. Test Opening a Browser

Create a Python script with the following code:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get("https://www.baidu.com")

Running this script launches Firefox and opens the Baidu homepage.