Basic Information about Selenium

What is Selenium? 

Selenium is an independent (open source) automatic test suite for web applications on different browsers and platforms. This is similar to the HP Quick Test Pro (QTTP Now Uft), focused only on automating the Selenium web-based applications. Testing using Selenium equipment is usually referred to as selenium test.

Selenium is not just a device, but a suite of software that meets the various testing requirements of the organization. It has four components.

1. Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
2. Selenium Remote Control (RC)
3. WebDriver
4. Selenium Grid

At the moment, Selenium RC and WebDriver are added to the same structure to make Selenium 2. Selenium 1, by the way, Selenium refers to RC.
 

Who developed Selenium?

Selenium was developed by Jason Huggins in 2004. He was working on a web application that needed constant testing. After experiencing that their application's repetitious manual test is becoming more and more inefficient, they created a JavaScript program that will automatically control the functions of the browser. He named this program "Javascript Test Runner". It helps to automate other web applications, making JavaScriptRunner open-source, which was later renamed as Selenium Core

What is Selenium Remote Control (Selenium RC)?

Selenium RC was the flagship testing framework of the whole Selenium project and created by Paul Hemant that decided to make a server that would serve as an HTTP proxy to "trick" the browser, believing that the selenium core and web applications being tested come from the same domain. This system is known as Selenium Remote Control or Selenium 1.

What is Selenium Grid?

Selenium Grid was developed as Patrick Lightbody's need to minimize the test execution time. They initially called the system "hosted QA". During this important steps, the browser was able to capture the screenshot, and also to send the selenium command in different machines simultaneously.

Features:

1) Enables to run tests in multiple browsers and environments simultaneously.

2) Saves time.

3) Uses the Hub-End-Nodes concept. Hub serves as a central source of selenium which commands for each node connected to it.

What is Selenium IDE?

Shinya Kashtani of Japan created the Selenium IDE, Firefox extension, which can automate the browser through the record-and-playback feature. He came up with this idea to speed up the production of test cases. In 2006, he donated Selenium IDE to Selenium Project. It should only be used as a prototype tool. If you want to make more advanced test cases, you have to use selenium RC or Webdriver.

What is WebDriver?

Simon Stewart created WebDriver in 2006 when the browser and web apps were becoming more powerful and more restrictive with javascript programs. This was the first cross-platform testing framework that could control the browser at the OS level and controls the browser directly by communicating with it.