---

sidebar_position: 10

BrowserType

BrowserType provides methods to launch a specific browser instance or connect to an existing one. The following is a
typical example of using Playwright to drive automation:

chromium = playwright.chromium
chromium.launch do |browser|
  page = browser.new_page
  page.goto('https://example.com/')

  # other actions

end

connect_over_cdp

def connect_over_cdp(
      endpointURL,
      headers: nil,
      slowMo: nil,
      timeout: nil,
      &block)

This method attaches Playwright to an existing browser instance using the Chrome DevTools Protocol.

The default browser context is accessible via Browser#contexts.

NOTE: Connecting over the Chrome DevTools Protocol is only supported for Chromium-based browsers.

Usage

browser = playwright.chromium.connect_over_cdp("http://localhost:9222")
default_context = browser.contexts.first
page = default_context.pages.first

executable_path

def executable_path

A path where Playwright expects to find a bundled browser executable.

launch

def launch(
      args: nil,
      channel: nil,
      chromiumSandbox: nil,
      devtools: nil,
      downloadsPath: nil,
      env: nil,
      executablePath: nil,
      firefoxUserPrefs: nil,
      handleSIGHUP: nil,
      handleSIGINT: nil,
      handleSIGTERM: nil,
      headless: nil,
      ignoreDefaultArgs: nil,
      proxy: nil,
      slowMo: nil,
      timeout: nil,
      tracesDir: nil,
      &block)

Returns the browser instance.

Usage

You can use ignoreDefaultArgs to filter out --mute-audio from default arguments:

browser = playwright.chromium.launch( # or "firefox" or "webkit".
  ignoreDefaultArgs: ["--mute-audio"]
)

browser.close

> Chromium-only Playwright can also be used to control the Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browsers, but it works best with the version of
Chromium it is bundled with. There is no guarantee it will work with any other version. Use executablePath
option with extreme caution.

>

> If Google Chrome (rather than Chromium) is preferred, a
Chrome Canary or
Dev Channel build is suggested.

>

> Stock browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are suitable for tests that require proprietary media codecs for video playback. See this article for other differences between Chromium and Chrome.
This article
describes some differences for Linux users.

launch_persistent_context

def launch_persistent_context(
      userDataDir,
      acceptDownloads: nil,
      args: nil,
      baseURL: nil,
      bypassCSP: nil,
      channel: nil,
      chromiumSandbox: nil,
      colorScheme: nil,
      deviceScaleFactor: nil,
      devtools: nil,
      downloadsPath: nil,
      env: nil,
      executablePath: nil,
      extraHTTPHeaders: nil,
      firefoxUserPrefs: nil,
      forcedColors: nil,
      geolocation: nil,
      handleSIGHUP: nil,
      handleSIGINT: nil,
      handleSIGTERM: nil,
      hasTouch: nil,
      headless: nil,
      httpCredentials: nil,
      ignoreDefaultArgs: nil,
      ignoreHTTPSErrors: nil,
      isMobile: nil,
      javaScriptEnabled: nil,
      locale: nil,
      noViewport: nil,
      offline: nil,
      permissions: nil,
      proxy: nil,
      record_har_content: nil,
      record_har_mode: nil,
      record_har_omit_content: nil,
      record_har_path: nil,
      record_har_url_filter: nil,
      record_video_dir: nil,
      record_video_size: nil,
      reducedMotion: nil,
      screen: nil,
      serviceWorkers: nil,
      slowMo: nil,
      strictSelectors: nil,
      timeout: nil,
      timezoneId: nil,
      tracesDir: nil,
      userAgent: nil,
      viewport: nil,
      &block)

Returns the persistent browser context instance.

Launches browser that uses persistent storage located at userDataDir and returns the only context. Closing
this context will automatically close the browser.

name

def name

Returns browser name. For example: 'chromium', 'webkit' or 'firefox'.