Squish for Web supports a wide range of different browsers and browser versions. The following table attempts to provide an overview of the browsers and browser versions being supported. More detailed information for each browser can be found in the following sections

You can execute, record and inspect web applications running in Firefox by selecting it in the Server Settings dialog in the Squish IDE. Open the dialog using Edit|Server Settings and then select the Browser page. In the dropdown on the right select Firefox. The Executable field allows you to specify the firefox executable if it is not found automatically by Squish.

Squish for Web needs to install an extension for Firefox to be able to automate the browser. The installation of the extension is automatically started from the IDE but it needs to be completed manually by accepting the extension and closing the browser. The extension installation process can be started at any time from the Server Settings dialog, but it is being started as well when the Squish IDE detects a missing or too old extension version. You can start the extension installation process manually from a terminal by issuing the following command after changing to the Squish installation directory:

lib/exec/browserextensionhelper installBrowserExtension firefox

Squish for Web uses a separate profile folder to separate passwords and other browser data between the automation session and your normal usage of the browser. The profile is being stored in a folder named squish_firefox_profile_dir in the directory $HOME/.squish on Linux and macOS and %APPDATA%\froglogic\Squish\ on Windows. The folder will be created by Firefox the first time Squish starts the browser.

Note

Squish for Web will start Firefox with a special URL that usually leads to Firefox displaying an error message about the server not responding or the URL not being found. This is normal and intended. The URL being passed as initial URL is necessary to transport information from Squish to its extension running inside Firefox. Once the extension has read the information from the URL it will start loading the URL specified for recording or in the startBrowser command.

3.7.2.1. Setup for attaching to running instances

	Note
	You only need to follow these instructions when you want to use the attachToBrowser function. The following instructions are only needed if you plan to automate a Firefox process that is being started by some other program and not directly by Squish for Web.

In order to automate Firefox you need to make sure the Squish Firefox Extension is installed in the user profile used by Firefox when it is started outside of Squish. The easiest way to install the extension is to open a file browser and navigate to your Squish for Web package. From there go into the lib subfolder in the package. Drag and drop the file squishWebExt@froglogic.com.xpi into the Firefox browser window and acknowledge the installation.

The Squish Firefox Extension by default uses the port 9932 for communication with the rest of Squish for Web. If this port is already used by some other program on your system you can configure the extension to use a different port. In order to do this just open the Firefox menu, click on the Tools entry and in the submenu click on Addons item. This opens a new tab with the extensions loaded by Firefox, make sure the Addons entry on the left of the page is selected. You should see the Squish Firefox Extension there and below it a button labeled Options or Preferences depending on your system. If you click that button a new popup window appears where you can change the port number. This port number should then be passed to the attachToBrowser function to attach to this instance of Firefox.

Usually Firefox will delay WebSocket connection attempts to a given WebSocket server for some time if the last attempt failed. This is a problem when wanting to attach to the browser from Squish as the Extension will repeatedly try to connect to Squish, but this connection will fail as long as there is no Squish test script executed with the attachToBrowser function. Hence after a while these connection attempts will be delayed by Firefox and eventually the delay will be longer than the AUT timeout configured in Squish which will cause the connection to fail to be established.

This behavior of Firefox can be disabled by opening the special about:config URL in a new browser tab. Please acknowledge the warning by clicking the I'll be careful, I promise button. The setting to change is network.websocket.delay-failed-reconnects and it should be set to false. You can search for the setting by typing the name into the search field and changing the setting can be done with a simple double click of the mouse on the value.

You can execute, record and inspect web applications running in Google Chrome/Chromium by selecting it in the Server Settings dialog in the Squish IDE. Open the dialog using Edit|Server Settings and then select the Browser page. In the dropdown on the right select Google Chrome. The Executable field allows you to specify the executable if it is not found automatically by Squish.

Squish for Web needs to install an extension for Google Chrome/Chromium to be able to automate the browser. The installation of the extension is automatically started from the IDE but it needs to be completed manually by accepting the extension and closing the browser. The extension installation process can be started at any time from the Server Settings dialog, but it is being started as well when the Squish IDE detects a missing or too old extension version. You can start the extension installation process manually from a terminal by issuing the following command after changing to the Squish installation directory:

lib/exec/browserextensionhelper installBrowserExtension google-chrome

In order to automate Google Chrome/Chromium Squish for Web needs to install an extension for Google Chrome/Chromium. The installation of the extension is automatically started from the IDE when you try to run a test against Google Chrome/Chromium or start the browser using the Launch AUT button. The froglogic Squish Chrome extension is distributed through the Chrome Web Store.

Squish for Web uses a separate profile folder to separate passwords and other browser data between the automation session and your normal usage of the browser. The profile is being stored in a folder named squish_chrome_data_dir in the directory $HOME/.squish on Linux and macOS and %APPDATA%\froglogic\Squish\ on Windows. The folder will be created by Google Chrome/Chromium the first time Squish starts the browser.

Note

Squish for Web will start Google Chrome/Chromium with a special URL that usually leads to Google Chrome/Chromium displaying an error message about the server not responding or the URL not being found. This is normal and intended. The URL being passed as initial URL is necessary to transport information from Squish to its extension running inside Google Chrome/Chromium. Once the extension has read the information from the URL it will start loading the URL specified for recording or in the startBrowser command.

3.7.3.1. Setup for attaching to running instances

	Note
	You only need to follow these instructions when you want to use the attachToBrowser function. The following instructions are only needed if you plan to automate a Chrome process that is being started by some other program and not directly by Squish for Web.

In order to automate Google Chrome you need to make sure the froglogic Squish Integration is loaded in the user profile used by Google Chrome when it is started outside of Squish. The easiest way to make Chrome use the extension is to start the browser and navigate to the Chrome store page for the Squish Integration: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mkfebldlkodkmhpdlgigfneaajboegdl. Once the page has loaded click the "Add To Chrome" button and on the popup that is being opened up acknowledge the installation. You can verify that loading the extension succeeded by opening the Chrome menu and then selecting Tools and then Extensions entry. This opens up a new tab with the list of extensions, you should see an entry for froglogic Squish Integration in that list.

The froglogic Squish Integration by default uses the port 9935 for communication with the rest of Squish for Web. If this port is already used by some other program on your system you can configure the extension to use a different port. In order to do this open the Chrome menu and then click on Tools and in the opened submenu click on Extensions. This opens a new tab with the Extensions loaded in Chrome. Below the entry for the froglogic Squish Integration you see a link labeled Options. If you click that link a new popup window appears where you can change the port number and save the change. This port number should then be passed to the attachToBrowser function to attach to this instance of Google Chrome.

You can execute, record and inspect web applications running in Internet Explorer by selecting it in the Server Settings dialog in the Squish IDE. Open the dialog using Edit|Server Settings and then select the Browser page. In the dropdown on the right select Internet Explorer.

Squish does not require any special setup steps to be able to automate Internet Explorer, all necessary setup is being done automatically when you start the browser the first time.

3.7.4.1. Setup to attach to running instances

	Note
	You only need to follow these instructions when you want to use the attachToBrowser function. The following instructions are only needed if you plan to automate an Internet Explorer window that is being started by some other program and not directly by Squish for Web.

In order to automate Internet Explorer using Squish for Web it is necessary to instruct it to use just a single process for all its tabs. Internet Explorer 10 and newer will usually use multiple processes for rendering websites as can be seen in the task manager.

Internet Explorer can be instructed to use only one process by changing a registry setting using the registry editor. The editor can be started by opening the Windows menu and then start typing regedit and select the entry running the regedit command.

The registry editor shows a tree on the left, locate the entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER and expand it. Following the tree structure expand the Software entry, below that Microsoft and finally inside Microsoft expand Internet Explorer. In this section there's an entry called Main and once it is selected you see a couple of keys on the right side of the editor. There should be a DWORD entry called TabProcGrowth there. The TabProcGrowth entry has to be set to 0 in order for Squish for Web to be able to automate Internet Explorer after attaching to it. Once this is done make sure to restart any running instances of the browser.

Microsoft® Edge support on Windows 10 is realized through the Edge Driver. The Edge Driver is not redistributed with squish so you have to download it from Microsoft®. Download Microsoft® Edge Driver

When using the Edge Driver implementation Squish does not start the browser itself but the Edge Driver. Since the Edge Driver executable can be located anywhere on the system you need to specify the path to the Edge Driver. If you're using the IDE you can simply use the Browser-Executable field in the Server Settings Dialog under Edit|Server Settings|Browser and Microsoft Edge. In case you do not use the IDE you can set the environment variable SQUISH_BROWSERPATH to point to the Edge Driver-Executable.

Support for automating the web content in Chromium-based applications is provided through the Webdriver for Chromium. The Webdriver is not redistributed with Squish so you have to download it from Google. Download Chromium Webdriver

Note

Different versions of Chromium require to use different versions of the chromedriver executable, in particular newer chromedriver versions do not support older versions of Chromium. In order to find the right chromedriver executable you need to determine the exact version of Chromium being used in your application and check the release notes of chromedriver on the above linked download page to find the chromedriver version suitable for your application. Older releases can be accessed by going to the parent directory from one of the newer download links, which leads to a directory listing all versions.

In order for Squish to find the downloaded Chromium webdriver executable you can place it into a directory that is in your PATH. As an alternative you can configure the location in the file webwrapper.ini that you can find in the etc directory of your Squish installation. Open the file in a text editor and replace the value 'chromedriver' in the line starting with 'ChromeDriverForChromiumBasedApps' with the absolute path of the downloaded chromedriver executable. On Windows it is necessary to duplicate the backslashes in the path to fulfill the formatting requirements of the file.

	Note
	If you want to automate an application that is using nw.js please make sure to use the chromedriver executable provided as part of the nw.js SDK download as the standard chromedriver seems to not work properly at the time of writing this.

In order to tell Squish about your Chromium-based application please select it as the browser executable in the Server Settings Dialog of the IDE. You can access the dialog by opening the Edit menu and below that the Server Settings submenu. In this submenu select the entry labeled Browser. In the dialog fill in the field below Chromium-based Applications (using CEF, Electron, nw.js etc.) and make sure that entry is selected.

In case you do not use the IDE you can set the environment variable SQUISH_BROWSERPATH to point to your application.

3.7.6.1. Setup for attaching to a running instance

	Note
	You only need to follow these instructions when you want to use the attachToBrowser function. The following instructions are only needed if you plan to automate a Chromium-based application that is being started by some other program and not directly by Squish for Web.

In order to attach to a Chromium-based application its necessary to prepare Squish for automating Chromium-based applications as explained in Chromium-based applications (Section 3.7.6). After the basic setup has been finished it is necessary to enable remote debugging features in the Chromium-part of the application. This is sometimes exposed as a commandline flag named --remote-debugging-port but it can also be set through code in your application. The port number used for the remote debugging port number needs to be passed to the attachToBrowser function in the test script to connect to the Chromium web content in the application.

You can execute, record and inspect web applications running in Safari by selecting it in the Server Settings dialog in the Squish IDE. Open the dialog using Edit|Server Settings and then select the Browser page. In the dropdown on the right select Safari.

3.7.7.1. Safari 12 or newer on macOS 10.13 or latser

3.7.7.1.1. Manual Setup Steps for Enabling Automation

Safari 12 stopped supporting the use of Plug-In's which Squish relied on so far, so Squish adopted a different mechanism for automation, based on Safari's support for WebDriver. In order to allow automation via Safari's WebDriver you must enable this through the Develop menu. This menu option is usually hidden, but can be shown by opening the Preferences of Safari and selecting the Advanced tab. On the tab ensure the Show Develop menu in menu bar option is checked.

Once the Develop menu is shown open it and make sure the Allow Remote Automation option is checked.

	Safari 12
	There are certain restrictions when automating Safari 12 as well as things to be aware of, we documented all of those in Limitations (Section 3.7.7.1.3).

3.7.7.1.2. Semi-Automatic Setup Steps for Enabling Automation

It is possible to enable the automation of Safari without starting the browser and going through the Develop menu. Safari's webdriver utility safaridriver allows to enable the Remote Automation through its commandline arguments. You can invoke safaridriver as shown below and provide the administrator password to enable automation, please make sure that Safari is not running on the system while doing this.

safaridriver --enable

	Safari 12
	There are certain restrictions when automating Safari 12 as well as things to be aware of, we documented all of those in Limitations (Section 3.7.7.1.3).

3.7.7.1.3. Limitations

The automation of Safari through the WebDriver protocol and Safari's behavior when being automated through this protocol impose certain restrictions on what can be done in the test scripts. In particular Safari is being executed in a separate dedicated Session which does not share any data with the normal browsing session, so cookies and other data is not being taken over from the normal browsing session. In addition to that the following limitations apply as well.

• No support for recording or picking objects. Since Safari ends the automation as soon as a native click appears on the window there is no way for Squish to receive such click events (or text input) and hence neither recording interactions nor picking elements is possible. Only script execution and navigation of the object structure via the Application Objects view's tree are possible.

• No support for native native text input (nativeType) or native mouse input via the mousePress/mouseRelease functions. Safari disallows native events in the special automation session, causing abortion of the automation if attempted.

• Limited support for the nativeMouseClick function. The overload taking a HTML object can be used, but the relative coordinates will be ignored and only left button clicks can be performed. The WebDriver protocol only allows to click on the center of html elements with the left mouse button.

• Squish's automateLogin function, used for the Basic HTTP Authentication dialogs used on some websites, cannot be used. The function uses native events which would break the automation session and the WebDriver protocol does not provide a way to interact with these dialogs. The login on such a website must be achieved through different means.

• Automation of file uploads requires that the input element used for the actual file upload is visible and interactable. Websites hiding this html element and showing customized upload buttons require some manual scripting that makes the hidden input field visible and then automates that field via setText, similar to the following snippet.

  Python

  hiddenInput = waitForObjectExists({"tagName":"INPUT", "id":"userfile"})
  hiddenInput.setProperty("style", "display:block;visibility:visible")
  snooze(1)
  setText(hiddenInput, "/Users/andreas/dummyfile.txt")
  

• The active browser tab will be changing regularly. In order to use the WebDriver protocol the active tab needs to be activated for certain operations. In Safari such a change of the active also visually changes the active tab in the UI. Since Squish does such operations behind the scenes during the normal operation some 'flickering' of tabs may occur

You can execute, record and inspect web applications running in Opera by selecting it in the Server Settings dialog in the Squish IDE. Open the dialog using Edit|Server Settings and then select the Browser page. In the dropdown on the right select Opera.

The Opera browser in versions up to 12 uses its own configuration settings for proxy servers. This makes it necessary to configure it to use the Squish for Web proxy manually, so Squish is able to automate Websites running in Opera.

Configuring the proxy can be done in the settings of Opera, they can be opened from the Menu by selecting the "Settings" entry and then in the submenu again selecting "Settings". In the dialog that appears the tab labeled "Advanced" needs to be selected to allow accessing the network configuration. The list on the left side of the tabs content has a corresponding entry called "Network" which needs to be selected. Click the button "Proxy servers" in the dialog to configure the proxy servers that Opera uses. In the newly opened dialog make sure the radio button "Use manual proxyserver configuration" is selected and check the checkbox next the "HTTP" entry. The fields "proxyserver" and "port" need to be filled with the values "localhost" and "8000" respectively. In addition the checkbox "Use the proxy for local servers" further down should be activated to make it possible to test the addressbook application that ships with Squish.

In addition to configuring the proxy, the Crash Recovery dialog in Opera should be disabled. Since the dialog cannot be automated with Squish for Web it would otherwise cause test execution abortion as it appears on each start of Opera after Squish has exited the browser. This setting needs to be changed in Operas configuration editor, which can be opened by putting "about:config" into the location bar. The page that is being opened allows searching for specific settings. Use "Problem" as keyword for the search so it will reveal the configuration entry for enabling and disabling the dialog. The title of the setting is "Show Problem Dialog" and the configuration entry needs to be disabled by unchecking the checkbox next to the text.

This completes the steps needed to setup Opera for testing with Squish, you can now select the Opera executable as a browser in the IDE and record and replay tests with it.

	Note
	Opera versions newer than 12 are currently not supported by Squish for Web

This section assumes Squish for Web 6.1 or later is installed on a desktop operating system. (see Installing the Command Line Tools, Server, and IDEs (Section 3.1))

	Note
	Examples contain system prompt symbols which may vary, and using Windows, the commands do not include the leading ./

3.7.9.1. Start the HTTP proxy

Start the HTTP-Proxy server by executing the following command in the console (this uses the default HTTP-proxy server port 8000):

	Mac users
	Confirm Python 2.6 or greater installed before proceeding

$ ./bin/webproxy/proxy

Please see Web Proxy (Section 7.4.8) for details about the options that the webproxy supports.