Introduction to Playwright and Environment Setup

Playwright Supported Browser

Learning Outcome

3

Launch different browsers using Playwright

2

Understand the relationship between browser engines and actual browsers.

1

Identify the three browser engines supported by Playwright

Recall

What is Playwright?

Why do we use browser automation?

What is a browser engine?

Imagine you have the same car and want to travel to three different cities.

You have one car to travel

Same Car

Same car for all trips!

You can take different roads to reach your cities.

Different Roads

Chromium Engine

FireFox Engine

WebKit Engine

CITY 1

CITY 2

CITY 3

CHROME

FIREFOX

SAFARI

Diffrent Destinations

Each Road Takes You Different City

We Test same journey on all Routes(i.e All Browsrs)

CHROME

FIREFOX

SAFARI

Checking Every Route

Testing Success

The Goal

The journey should be successful regardless of which route you take.

Text

Similarly, a Playwright test should be able to run against different browser engines to verify that the application behaves correctly across browsers.

Transition from Analogy to Technical Concept

Analogy

Same car

Different roads

Different destinations

Check every route

Successful journey

Playwright

Same automation script

Different browser engines

Different browsers

Cross-browser testing

Application works correctly

Key Idea

Write the test once

 

Run it against multiple browser engines

 

Find browser-specific issues.

What Are Playwright-Supported Browsers?

Playwright supports multiple browser engines, allowing web applications to be automated and tested across different browsers using the same API.

Three Browser Engines

Chromium

Firefox

WebKit

Testing Chromium gives coverage for applications running in the Chromium browser-engine ecosystem.

Playwright provides direct support for the Firefox browser engine.

WebKit testing helps validate application behaviour in the Safari browser engine environment.

 

Browser Engine vs Actual Browser

A browser engine is the underlying technology responsible for rendering and running web content.

Chromium

Firefox

WebKit

Google Chrome          Microsoft Edge          Brave          Opera

BROWSER ENGINE

Actual Browser

Mozilla firefox

Safari

This distinction is important

Playwright primarily works with browser engines, rather than treating every browser brand as a completely separate automation technology.

How Does Playwright Run on Different Browsers? 

Create Playwright

Navigate to Application

Perform Automation

Close Browser

Create Page

Launch Browser

Select Browser Engine

Browser Channels

Channel

Browser

chrome

msedge

chrome-beta

Campaign D

Google Chrome

Microsoft Edge

Chrome Beta

Edge Beta

Playwright can also launch specific browser installations using browser channels

Why Channels Matter?

They allow automation to target particular browser installations rather than only the default Playwright-managed browser

Summary

3

Browser channels can be used to launch specific browser installations.

2

The same Playwright automation approach can be used across multiple browser engines.

1

Playwright supports three browser engines: Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit.   

Quiz

Which browser engine powers Google Chrome?

A. Gecko

B. WebKit

C. Chromium

D. Blink

Quiz-Answer

Which browser engine powers Google Chrome?

A. Gecko

B. WebKit

C. Chromium

D. Blink

1.4 Playwright Supported browser

By Content ITV

1.4 Playwright Supported browser

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