UC Mode users should upgrade to 4.32.8 (or newer if available)

[mdmintz]

UC Mode users should upgrade to 4.32.8 (or newer if available)

There were lots of things happening all at once. The latest version of SeleniumBase resolves them.

For starters, unusual things happened after Chrome 130 came out, specifically when stopping the webdriver service to avoid bot-detection. That caused Chrome's internal "Google Network Speech" extension to appear in unexpected places, (neajdppkdcdipfabeoofebfddakdcjhd: https://github.com/search?q=neajdppkdcdipfabeoofebfddakdcjhd&type=issues), which led to all sorts of issues with UC Mode. Although early workarounds helped to minimize the disruption, things weren't fully back to normal until now (hopefully). One workaround included creating a user-data-dir in advance by launching a decoy Chrome browser before the actual one to be used. (This added a few seconds to the beginning of scripts, and wasn't always effective.)

In addition to providing a real fix for the issues of Chrome 130, SeleniumBase 4.32.8 also includes important updates to the new CDP Mode, which is an extension of UC Mode that allows you perform stealthy browser actions while chromedriver / uc_driver is disconnected from the Chrome browser. This allows you to bypass the bot-detection of advanced anti-bot systems such as DataDome, Kasada, and Imperva/Incapsula. It can also be used to speed up scripts that run on Cloudflare-protected sites, (mainly because you no longer need to "guess" the optimal reconnect_time).

If you haven't already read about the new CDP Mode, then check out the CDP Mode docs!
It's a huge upgrade to the already impressive UC Mode. (Expect a new YouTube video for that soon.)

Special thanks to beta-testers from the SeleniumBase Discord Server: https://discord.gg/EdhQTn3EyE.
Hopefully we can now cast aside the "beta" designation for CDP Mode.
As always, "if you see something, say something."
Discussions can be found on Discord and https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/discussions.

[mdmintz]

There are lots of new CDP Mode examples here: SeleniumBase/examples/cdp_mode

[mdmintz]

Time for everyone to upgrade to SeleniumBase 4.32.8 (or newer if available).