Question

Running Selenium 1 locally (not through grid) all the supported browser strings are prefixed by *. Assuming Selenium-Server has already been started

return new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "*firefox", "http://www.google.com");

Is this just a convention, or does it have some functional purpose? Note that we executing with an unsupported browser type is a nice way to get a list of the supported browsers.

return new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "firefox", "http://www.google.com");

Answer 1

When you add an asterisk in front of the browser name, you are telling selenium to treat it as a “special browser setting”, which will allow selenium to automatically configure it if needed (for example disable pop-up blocking). It is recommended to use this option. For further details see here and here in selenium documentation.

from the same links:

“browserString” MUST be either an absolute file path to a browser
executable, or a special string starting with an asterisk ‘*’. (See
the next section for details.)

and

Supporting the following special browserStrings is RECOMMENDED:

*firefox
*iexplore
*opera
*netscape
*konqueror
*safari
*seamonkey
*omniweb
*camino The Server MAY support other special browserStrings.

If the Client Driver issues a “getNewBrowserSession” Command Request
for one of these strings, the Server SHOULD launch the specified
browser.

When the Server launches the browser using a special browserString,
the Server MAY automatically configure the browser in a way that makes
it suitable for automated testing. For example the Server MAY disable
pop-up blocking or unnecessary security prompts.

The Server MAY allow options to be specified in the browserString, by
appending them to one of the supported browserStrings. For example,
the Server MAY allow the Client Driver to specify an absolute path to
Firefox while the Server automatically configures it by accepting the
browserString “*firefox c:\firefox\firefox.exe”.