16.3Era 2: WebDriver and Native Browser APIs (2011-2017)

How It Worked

Each browser vendor provided a "driver" binary (chromedriver, geckodriver) that used native browser APIs to control the browser. Communication was HTTP + JSON.

Test Script ──HTTP──► ChromeDriver ──Native API──► Chrome

The WebDriver Protocol (W3C Standard, 2018)

POST /session                          → Create session
POST /session/{id}/url                 → Navigate
POST /session/{id}/element             → Find element
POST /session/{id}/element/{id}/click  → Click element
POST /session/{id}/element/{id}/value  → Type text
GET  /session/{id}/screenshot          → Take screenshot
DELETE /session/{id}                   → Close session

Advantages Over Selenium 1

• Native control: No JavaScript injection needed
• Cross-domain: No same-origin restrictions
• Standardized: W3C standard, all browsers implement it
• Reliable: Using browser's own APIs

Limitations

• Unidirectional: Client asks, browser answers. No events.
• Coarse-grained: Limited to what the spec defines
• No real-time: Can't listen for console logs, network events, etc.
• Polling required: To detect page changes, must repeatedly ask