Installing Selenium — Python and Java Setup with Browser Drivers

Before you can write a single line of automation, you need a working environment: the Selenium library installed, a browser driver that matches your browser version, and a project structure that keeps things organised. This lesson walks through the complete setup for both Python and Java — the two most popular languages for Selenium automation — so you can choose whichever fits your team and run your first test within minutes.

Setting Up Selenium — Python and Java #

Modern Selenium (version 4.6+) includes Selenium Manager, which automatically downloads the correct browser driver for you. This eliminates the most painful part of the old setup process — manually matching ChromeDriver versions to your Chrome browser.

# ── PYTHON SETUP ──
# Step 1: Create a virtual environment (recommended)
# $ python -m venv venv
# $ source venv/bin/activate   (macOS/Linux)
# $ venv\Scripts\activate      (Windows)

# Step 2: Install Selenium
# $ pip install selenium

# Step 3: Verify installation
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Selenium 4.6+ includes Selenium Manager — no manual driver download needed
driver = webdriver.Chrome()  # Automatically finds or downloads ChromeDriver

# Verify it works
driver.get("https://www.google.com")
print(f"Page title: {driver.title}")
print(f"Current URL: {driver.current_url}")
print(f"Browser: {driver.capabilities['browserName']}")
print(f"Browser version: {driver.capabilities['browserVersion']}")

driver.quit()
print("Setup verified successfully!")

// ── JAVA SETUP ──
// Step 1: Create a Maven project and add dependency to pom.xml
// <dependency>
//     <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
//     <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
//     <version>4.18.1</version>
// </dependency>

// Step 2: Write a verification test
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class SetupVerification {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Selenium Manager handles ChromeDriver automatically
        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

        driver.get("https://www.google.com");
        System.out.println("Title: " + driver.getTitle());
        System.out.println("URL: " + driver.getCurrentUrl());

        driver.quit();
        System.out.println("Setup verified successfully!");
    }
}

Common Mistakes #

Mistake 1 — Manually downloading ChromeDriver when using Selenium 4.6+ #

❌ Wrong: Downloading ChromeDriver from the internet, placing it in your PATH, and updating it every time Chrome auto-updates.

✅ Correct: Using Selenium 4.6+ which includes Selenium Manager to automatically detect your browser version and download the matching driver. Simply write driver = webdriver.Chrome() and let Selenium handle the rest.

Mistake 2 — Not using a virtual environment for Python projects #

❌ Wrong: Installing Selenium globally with pip install selenium, causing version conflicts across projects.

✅ Correct: Creating a virtual environment (python -m venv venv) for each project, activating it, and then installing dependencies. This isolates each project’s libraries and prevents version conflicts.