Master Selenium 4: Replace DesiredCapabilities with Options and Unlock New Actions

Deprecation of DesiredCapabilities

In Selenium 3 DesiredCapabilities was used with RemoteWebDriver to configure browser features. Selenium 4 replaces it with browser‑specific Options objects (e.g., ChromeOptions, FirefoxOptions) that are passed directly to the driver constructor.

Chrome Options

Remote (Cloud)

import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.setAcceptInsecureCerts(true);
options.setCapability("build", "Testing Chrome Options [Selenium 4]");
options.setCapability("name", "Testing Chrome Options [Selenium 4]");
options.setCapability("platformName", "Windows 10");
options.setCapability("browserName", "Chrome");
options.setCapability("browserVersion", "latest");

try {
    driver = new RemoteWebDriver(
        new URL("http://" + username + ":" + access_key + "@hub.lambdatest.com/wd/hub"),
        ((Capabilities) options));
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
    System.out.println("Invalid grid URL");
}

driver.get("https://www.lambdatest.com");

Local

import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions;

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.setAcceptInsecureCerts(true);

driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

driver.get("https://www.lambdatest.com");

Firefox Options

Remote (Cloud)

import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxOptions;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;

FirefoxOptions options = new FirefoxOptions();
options.setAcceptInsecureCerts(true);
options.setCapability("build", "Testing Firefox Options [Selenium 4]");
options.setCapability("name", "Testing Firefox Options [Selenium 4]");
options.setCapability("platformName", "Windows 10");
options.setCapability("browserName", "Firefox");
options.setCapability("browserVersion", "68.0");

try {
    driver = new RemoteWebDriver(
        new URL("http://" + username + ":" + access_key + "@hub.lambdatest.com/wd/hub"),
        ((Capabilities) options));
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
    System.out.println("Invalid grid URL");
}

driver.get("https://www.lambdatest.com");

Local

import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxOptions;

FirefoxOptions options = new FirefoxOptions();
options.setAcceptInsecureCerts(true);

driver = new FirefoxDriver(options);

driver.get("https://www.lambdatest.com");

FindsBy Interface

The FindsBy interface in org.openqa.selenium.internal is deprecated in Selenium 4. Users should continue to use the standard driver.findElement(By…) and driver.findElements(By…) methods.

WebElement email = driver.findElement(By.id("email"));
WebElement password = driver.findElement(By.name("password"));
WebElement submitBtn = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@value='submit']"));

List<WebElement> signUpForm = driver.findElements(By.className("cell-body-textinput"));
List<WebElement> address = driver.findElements(By.name("Address"));

New Actions API in Selenium 4

The Actions class now provides direct element‑specific methods, eliminating the need for separate moveToElement(...) calls.

Left Click

public void testLeftClick() throws InterruptedException {
    driver.navigate().to("https://www.amazon.in/");
    driver.manage().window().maximize();
    Actions action = new Actions(driver);
    WebElement searchBox = driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#twotabsearchtextbox"));
    action.sendKeys(searchBox, "iphone").perform();
    WebElement goBtn = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@value='Go']"));
    Thread.sleep(5000);
    action.click(goBtn).perform();
    Thread.sleep(5000);
    assertEquals(driver.getTitle(), "Amazon.in : iphone");
}

Double Click and Right Click

public void testDoubleRightClick() throws InterruptedException {
    driver.navigate().to("https://www.amazon.in/");
    driver.manage().window().maximize();
    Actions action = new Actions(driver);
    WebElement mobilesLink = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[.='Mobiles']"));
    action.doubleClick(mobilesLink).perform();
    Thread.sleep(5000);
    assertEquals(driver.getTitle(), "Mobile Phones: Buy New Mobiles Online at Best Prices in India | Buy Cell Phones Online - Amazon.in");
    driver.manage().timeouts().pageLoadTimeout(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    action.contextClick().perform();
}

Drag and Drop

public void testDragAndDrop() throws InterruptedException {
    driver.navigate().to("https://selenium08.blogspot.com/2020/01/click-and-hold.html");
    driver.manage().timeouts().pageLoadTimeout(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    driver.manage().window().maximize();
    Actions action = new Actions(driver);
    WebElement source = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//li[text()='C']"));
    WebElement target = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//li[text()='A']"));
    action.clickAndHold(source).release(target).perform();
    Thread.sleep(2000);
}

FluentWait Changes

In Selenium 4 the withTimeout and pollingEvery methods accept a single java.time.Duration argument instead of separate numeric and TimeUnit parameters.

Selenium 3 Example

Wait<WebDriver> wait = new FluentWait<WebDriver>(driver)
        .withTimeout(60, SECONDS)
        .pollingEvery(2, SECONDS)
        .ignoring(NoSuchElementException.class);
WebElement foo = wait.until(new Function<WebDriver, WebElement>() {
    public WebElement apply(WebDriver driver) {
        return driver.findElement(By.id("foo"));
    }
});

Selenium 4 Example

Wait<WebDriver> wait = new FluentWait<WebDriver>(driver)
        .withTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(120))
        .pollingEvery(Duration.ofMillis(2000))
        .ignoring(NoSuchElementException.class);
WebElement foo = wait.until(new Function<WebDriver, WebElement>() {
    public WebElement apply(WebDriver driver) {
        return driver.findElement(By.id("foo"));
    }
});