Facts, Misconception & Myths About Selenium WebDriver

In this post, we will see some facts,misconceptions and myths about Selenium WebDriver which you may be keep encountering around:-

1. You can become an Automation Tester after learning Selenium only. – Hmm, not true.
2. If you want to work on Selenium-Python, first learn Selenium-Java. It is absolutely not like that.
3. “Selenium” is neither the entry point not end point of Automation testing.
4. There are many language specific client drivers to interact with “Selenium API” other than Java.
5. Browser drivers are not developed by Selenium developers.
6. Selenium is a list of APIs.
7. Selenium is not meant for performance testing.
8. Selenium is not meant for API testing.
9. Selenium is not meant for standalone or desktop based application automation.
10. Selenium is not meant for automate excel sheet.
11. Selenium is not meant for automate pdf files.
12. Selenium is not meant to do Database testing.
13. Selenium has its limitations.
14. Everything that pops up , can not be handled by Alert interface.
15. Every dropdown can not handled using Select class.
16. There is no term called Hard Assert.
17. Thread.sleep() does not belong to Selenium.
18. There are two types of waits available in Selenium- Implicit wait and Explicit wait.
19. Using JavaScript commands where WebDriver APIs fail is not recommended. You may miss bug.
20. Running scripts by passing keywords from Excel is not the Keyword driven framework in Selenium.
21. Using TestNG DataProvider is not the only way to achieve Data driven framework in Selenium.
22. Page Object Model is a concept, PageFactory is an implementation.
23. PageFactory is provided by Selenium, not by TestNG.
24. NullPointerException occurs because of Developer’s mistake in codes.
25. StaleElementException can not be handled by increasing wait time.
26. Page Object Model is not a framework. It is a design pattern.
27. Many people start explaining their Selenium framework from Tests.
28. There is difference between Visibility and Presence of a Web Element.
29. You can write robust XPath and CSS compared to generated locators by tools.
30. Selenium automates browser. You need to add validation to use it as a testing tool.
31. Synchronization in Selenium is related to matching speed of your code with application.
32. There is no difference between get() and navigate() internally.
33. Assert statement terminates the execution because it throws an Error and generally we handle Exceptions only.
34. “Difference between Assert and Verify” may be an invalid question. I have never seen any term called “verify” till now.
35. Many selenium professionals confuse to differentiate among website popup, JavaScript popup, Notifications popup etc.
36. AutoIT is only for windows and can not be executed on Jenkins.
37. People struggle lot to run Selenium scripts on Internet Explorer browser.
38. There is not marginally difference in performance of XPath Vs CSS.
39. CSS is said to be good for cross browser testing as they never change across browsers. It is not correct. You do navigation in both Xpath and CSS.
40. You can not inspect a JavaScript alert.
41. Many Selenium professional do not follow folder hierarchy and usage provided by build tools Maven and Gradle.
42. 32 bit Internet explorer driver works faster for both 32 and 64 bit Windows IE.
43. You always do not need to downcast driver to capture screen shot.
44. You always do not need to downcase driver to execute JavaScript commands.
45. Selenium became famous as it is an open source. There are many powerful paid tools than Selenium in market.
46. Selenium is not a favourite tools in Agile or DevOps as it has late entry in Test First methodology.
47. Selenium can not find real bugs if you do not cover validation well.
48. Many people write data dependent selenium scripts.
49. Many people are afraid of upgrading Selenium and browser versions in Framework.
50. Selenium professionals become more happy when they see higher percentage of test passes. It should be other way around.
51. If you do not know about waits in Selenium, then only go for Protractor for Angular applications. It is a big misconception. Protractor has its own advantages for Angular applications.
52. More you good in language, better Selenium scripts you can write.

I will keep updating this list. You can also comment your views below.