Most Common Selenium Interview Questions & Answers You Need to Know in 2023

Selenium refers to an open-source suite of tools for the automation of web browsers. The Selenium test suite includes Selenium WebDriver, Selenium Grid, Selenium IDE, and other related projects, developed and maintained by a thriving community of open-source contributors and users. However, the catch is that Selenium can only be used in browsers and cannot automate desktop applications. But given its compatibility with popular web browsers, Selenium is one of the most favored tool suites for the automation testing of web applications.

If you’ve been looking forward to Selenium interview questions and answers, including Selenium WebDriver interview questions, you’ve stumbled upon the right blog!

Must-know Selenium Interview Questions

Here’s a compilation of some commonly asked Selenium interview questions (with answers) to help you ace automation job interviews.

1. What are the components in the Selenium suite?

The Selenium test suite has four main components: Selenium IDE, Selenium RC, Selenium WebDriver, and Selenium Grid.

Selenium IDE is a Chrome/Firefox plugin developed to accelerate the creation of automation scripts through its record and playback functionality. 

Selenium RC is a server for writing application tests in different programming languages. 

Selenium WebDriver is an advanced version of Selenium RC that helps users create and run test cases. But unlike RC, WebDriver interacts natively with the web apps and does not require an additional server.

Finally, Selenium Grid is used for the parallel execution of test cases on different machines, browsers, and operating systems. 

2. Why should one use Selenium?

Some of the advantages of Selenium include:

• Cross-browser compatibility (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.)
• Compatible with popular operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux/Unix)
• Open-source
• Extensive community support
• Supports multiple programming languages (Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, etc.)
• Supports distributed testing
• Regular repository developments

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3. What is the difference between Selenium 3.0 and Selenium 2.0?

Selenium 2.0 is the merger of the original Selenium project and the WebDriver project. Although Selenium RC got deprecated, its use continued for backward compatibility.

Selenium 3.0 is an extension of Selenium 2.0 and does not include Selenium RC. However, it has increased stability, is inherently backward compatible, and has several bug fixes.

4. What are the testing types Selenium supports?

Selenium supports functional testing and regression testing.

Functional testing involves verifying each function of the application with the required specification.

Regression testing is a partial or complete selection of already executed test cases that undergo re-execution to ensure that existing functionalities are working as designed.

5. What is Selenese?

Selenese refers to the set of Selenium commands used to test web applications. These are of three types: action, accessors, and assertions.

Action commands interact directly with the application, accessors let users store values to a user-defined variable, and assertions verify the current state of the apps with an expected state.

6. What are the Exceptions in Selenium WebDriver?

Selenium WebDriver has Exceptions like any other programming language. Some of the most common Selenium WebDriver Exceptions are:

• NoSuchElementException: Thrown when an element in a given set of attributes isn’t present on the web page. 
• TimeOutException: Thrown when a particular operation cannot be completed in a stipulated time.
• StaleElementException: This Exception is thrown when an element is deleted or no longer present in the DOM.
• ElementNotVisibleException: Thrown in cases when an element is present in the DOM but invisible on the web page.

7. Which API is used for database testing in Selenium WebDriver?

Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API is used for database testing in Selenium WebDriver. JDBC allows users to write and execute SQL queries.

8. What are the types of waits supported by Selenium WebDriver?

Selenium WebDriver has three commands for implementing waits in tests. These are as follows:

Explicit wait: The explicit wait command tells the web driver to wait for specific conditions before throwing ElementNotVisibleException.

Implicit wait: It commands Selenium to wait for a definite amount of time before throwing NoSuchElementException.

Fluent wait: The fluent wait command is used to define the maximum time a web driver needs to wait for a condition and the frequency with which the user wants to check the condition before throwing ElementNotVisibleException. 

9. What are the limitations of Selenium WebDriver?

Some of the limitations of Selenium WebDriver include:

• It cannot be used to test mobile and desktop applications
• Lack of built-in reporting
• Limited support for image testing
• Requires prior knowledge of programming language
• Lacks vendor support

10. How to launch different browsers in Selenium?

To launch a browser in Selenium, we need to create a driver instance for the browser we need to work upon. The WebDriver is the interface where Chrome, Firefox, and other browser driver implementations are made.

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

WebDriver driver = new FireFoxDriver();

11. What is a locator, and how do we locate an element in Selenium?

A locator is an address for identifying a web element within a webpage. In other words, it is a command that instructs Selenium IDE to operate on specific GUI elements. Locators are important because identifying GUI elements is necessary to create an automation script. Selenium uses different types of locators to identify web elements accurately. The locators are name locator, ID locator, CSS selector, XPath, partial link text, and link text.

12. How can we type text in an input box using Selenium?

The method sendKeys() is used to type text in input boxes.

Here’s an example:

WebElement email = driver.findElement(By.id(“email”)); – It uses the ID locator to find the text “email” 

email.sendKeys(“abc.123@gmail.com”);  – It enters text into the URL field

WebElement password = driver.findElement(By.id(“Password”)); – It uses the ID locator to find the text  “password” 

 password.sendKeys(“xyz456”); – It enters text into the password field

13 What is driver.quit() and driver.close()?

Calling quit() on the driver instance when one or more browser windows are open closes all the open browser windows. 

On the other hand, driver.close() closes the browser’s current window even if multiple windows are open.

14. What are the different browser navigation commands for Selenium WebDriver?

Some of the commonly used Selenium WebDriver browser navigation commands are:

driver.navigate().refresh(); – Refreshes the current page

driver.navigate().to(“https://www.upgrad.com/us/”); – Navigates to the URL provided

driver.navigate().back(); – Has the same job as clicking on the browser’s back button.

driver.navigate().forward(); – Has the same job as clicking on the browser’s forward button.

15. Can Selenium handle Windows-based pop-ups?

Since Selenium is designed to handle web apps, it does not have native support for Windows-based features. But integrating third-party tools like Robot and AutoIT can overcome this limitation.

With that, we come to the end of our Selenium interview questions.

Conclusion

Testing is a critical phase in software development lifecycles (SDLCs). For quite some time, manually testing applications to detect bugs and errors has been the norm. However, manual testing is tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone. Therefore, a need arose for automation testing. The Selenium suite of tools was developed precisely for automated testing purposes. Furthermore, given the heavy reliance on the web, ensuring the proper functioning and up-time of web applications is vital. As a result, the demand for Selenium and Selenium automation testers is pretty high. 

So, if you’re planning to enter the testing domain, these Selenium interview questions and answers will help you immensely!

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