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Selenium News and Updates: A Smattering of Selenium 78

A look back at A Smattering of Selenium #78, Adam Goucher’s February 2012 roundup of WebDriver, test infrastructure, selectors, and mobile testing.

By the ScreenshotNeo team4 October 20264 min read

“A Smattering of Selenium #78” is issue 78 of a community link roundup, not Selenium release 78. Adam Goucher published it on February 1, 2012, under the lead “Look! A light at the end of the tunnel!” The post collected links and brief commentary about Selenium and WebDriver work happening at the time. Read the original roundup.

This is a historical archive explainer, not current release guidance. Selenium’s project publishes release announcements separately; its releases archive includes much later versions, including Selenium 4.49. The official Selenium 4.48 announcement is dated August 27, 2026. Selenium releases archive · Selenium 4.48 announcement.

What was in Selenium Smattering 78?

The issue was a curated set of links rather than a single technical tutorial or release note. Its subjects give a snapshot of early 2012 discussions around browser automation, test design, CI, and WebDriver:

  1. ASP.NET MVC, Selenium, and IIS Express: a how-to on combining the framework, browser automation, and Microsoft’s lightweight web server. Goucher remarked on the relative scarcity of Windows-focused how-to posts.
  2. JSON logs for machines: a proposal to make logs machine-readable with JSON, alongside the idea that CI containers could share a convention for consuming that output.
  3. Remote file uploads: a discussion of Selenium 2’s FileDetectors for handling uploads in remote WebDriver sessions.
  4. Janky and CI choices: the roundup described Janky as GitHub’s CI server and noted that some teams chose to build their own CI system.
  5. Independent tests and assertions: advice about refactoring scripts away from dependent tests and toward independent tests and assertions.
  6. Selectors and DOM traversal: injecting the Sizzle CSS selector library into WebDriver scripts was presented alongside WebDriver Plus DOM traversal as an alternative.
  7. Ubuntu and Java packages: an Ubuntu notice concerned Java packages relevant to running Selenium Server.
  8. ShiningPanda: a linked article discussed running Selenium on ShiningPanda, which Goucher compared with CloudBees for Python.
  9. WebDriver on iOS: one link covered the WebDriver iOS driver.
  10. Cookies: Goucher included his own post, “WebDriver and Cookies.”

These are descriptions of the links as presented in the 2012 roundup. The roundup does not establish whether those services, code examples, packages, or linked pages remain available or work with current Selenium.

What the roundup says about Selenium’s development at the time

The links point to practical engineering questions rather than a new Selenium version: how to move files through remote sessions, make test results useful to machines, keep tests independent, choose a selector strategy, and run browser tests in CI or on mobile platforms. The post’s “light at the end of the tunnel” line is its editorial framing; it is not a release status or a claim about a measured project milestone.

Within the narrow comparisons the post raises, JSON logs offer a shared machine-readable format in place of ad hoc output; using a CI service is one path alongside operating a team’s own system; and Sizzle injection is one selector approach alongside WebDriver Plus DOM traversal. The article supplies no benchmark or systematic comparison of those choices.

  1. Start with the original post. It preserves the original link list and Goucher’s short notes.
  2. Check destination dates and current documentation. A link in a 2012 roundup is historical context; it is not evidence that the destination still exists or describes supported behavior today.
  3. Separate the archive from release information. For current Selenium release history, use the project’s official releases archive and the release announcement for the version you are evaluating.
  4. Translate old implementation ideas before reusing them. Treat references to Selenium 2, FileDetectors, Janky, ShiningPanda, or the iOS driver as clues for further research, not drop-in instructions for a current environment.

Capturing a historical Selenium page

If you are documenting this archive or preserving a page for a test report, a browser automation script can capture a screenshot. For a one-off capture in Python, install Selenium with python -m pip install selenium, make sure a compatible browser and driver setup is available, then run:

from pathlib import Path
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.add_argument("--headless")
options.add_argument("--window-size=1440,1000")

driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
try:
    driver.set_page_load_timeout(45)
    driver.get("https://www.selenium.dev/blog/2012/a-smattering-of-selenium-78/")
    driver.save_screenshot("selenium-smattering-78.png")
finally:
    driver.quit()

This saves the current rendered viewport, not necessarily the full page. Browser and driver installation depends on your environment; Selenium Manager can help manage drivers in supported Selenium setups, but consult the current Selenium documentation for setup details. This capture script does not remove consent dialogs or guarantee that every page resource has finished rendering.

Or skip the browser setup

ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server for developers. Make one GET request to capture the archive as an image; see the API documentation for options.

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://www.selenium.dev/blog/2012/a-smattering-of-selenium-78/ -o shot.webp

ScreenshotNeo accepts cookie and consent banners before capture and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets; each step can be turned off. Bot checks or CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits cost nothing, and response headers report the page verdict and billing status. Its MCP server provides take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf tools for Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients. The free plan includes 1,000 screenshots a month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 shots.

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FAQ

Was Selenium 78 released in 2012?

No. The “78” in the title is the roundup’s issue number, not a Selenium release number.

Who wrote the roundup, and when?

Adam Goucher published it on February 1, 2012.

Does the post give current instructions for remote uploads or iOS testing?

No. It links to discussions from 2012. Check current Selenium documentation and the status of each linked project before using an old technique.

Where should I look for Selenium version news?

Use the Selenium project’s official releases archive and version-specific announcements. The Smattering series is a community roundup, not the project’s release stream.

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