Selenium News and Updates: A Smattering of Selenium 99

A Smattering of Selenium #99 is a historical Selenium community link roundup by Adam Goucher, published on July 6, 2012. It is not a Selenium version update or a current survey of Selenium news. Its links touch on browser automation, software delivery, mobile UI automation, and web performance. Treat it as an archival snapshot: the post does not establish whether its linked tools, services, or advice remain available or compatible today.

What is A Smattering of Selenium #99?

It is the 99th entry in a series of short posts that collected noteworthy links and commentary for the Selenium community. Goucher introduced this edition as the point when the accumulated link queue had been cleared, writing, “With the queue flushed we’ll go back to our regular random posting schedule.” The sentence describes the editorial rhythm of the series; it is not a product announcement.

The post is useful today as a record of what one Selenium community author considered worth sharing in July 2012. It should not be read as a vetted list of current recommendations.

Topics covered in the 2012 roundup

The source post links to material across several areas. These are topics it mentioned, not independent endorsements or present-day evaluations.

• Software architecture: a discussion of architecture and Coda Hale’s Etsy talk.
• Developer events: talks from Atlassian Summit 2012.
• Browsers and mobile: debate around claims about Chrome performance on iOS.
• Remote browser testing: uploading files through Remote WebDriver.
• Software delivery: linking Puppet with Jenkins.
• Testing practice: automated UI testing.
• Timekeeping: leap seconds and their implications.
• Python and browser automation: using Python with Selenium to automate web timing.
• Mobile UI automation: the bwoken 1.1 tool.
• Web performance: different approaches to measuring time to first byte.

The breadth is part of the post’s character: it sits at the intersection of browser testing and the surrounding software engineering community. The roundup does not provide a central experiment, benchmark, or set of results, so no performance figure should be attributed to it.

How to use this post as a historical source

1. Start with the date. July 6, 2012 is essential context. Browser behavior, APIs, project names, and hosted services can change over time.
2. Separate the link topic from a recommendation. A link’s presence tells you it was included in this roundup, not that the author tested or endorsed it.
3. Check current primary documentation. Before adopting a tool or technique mentioned there, find its current official project documentation and confirm that it is maintained and compatible with your browser and Selenium setup.
4. Re-run performance work in your own environment. The mention of time to first byte is a pointer to a measurement topic, not a reported result. Define the measurement, control for network and cache conditions, and record the environment for any current comparison.
5. Preserve the archival context when citing it. Describe it as a 2012 link roundup rather than “latest Selenium news.”

Read the original post on the Selenium blog for the original link list and its context.

Capture a current page while researching an old link

If you are documenting how one of the linked pages looks today, a reproducible screenshot can preserve the visible state alongside your notes. A browser automation setup is useful when you need to interact with a page or assert behavior. For a direct capture, Selenium’s official documentation explains its WebDriver approach; availability and browser compatibility depend on the current Selenium and browser versions.

DIY example: capture a page with Selenium in Python

This runnable example opens a page in headless Chrome and saves a viewport screenshot. Install Selenium with python -m pip install selenium, install Chrome, then run the script. Recent Selenium versions can manage the browser driver through Selenium Manager; in restricted environments, install and configure a compatible driver explicitly.

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.get("https://www.selenium.dev/")
    driver.save_screenshot("selenium-homepage.png")
finally:
    driver.quit()

This captures the current viewport, not necessarily the entire page. For a page that loads content as you scroll, use a full-page capture technique supported by your browser or scroll through the page before capturing. Keep the browser and driver versions compatible, wait for the page state you need, and avoid treating a screenshot as proof that the page’s content or linked software is trustworthy.

Or skip the browser setup

ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server from Yorker Media. One GET request returns a PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF; see the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for request options.

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" \
  -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY \
  --data-urlencode url=https://www.selenium.dev/ \
  -o shot.webp

ScreenshotNeo accepts cookie and consent banners like a visitor and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture; each of those steps can be turned off. Bot checks and CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed, and response headers identify the page verdict and billing status. Its MCP server provides take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf for Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients. The free plan includes 1,000 shots a month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 shots.

Create a free ScreenshotNeo account to get 1,000 screenshots a month with no card.

FAQ

Is A Smattering of Selenium #99 a Selenium release?

No. It is a link roundup published in 2012, not a release announcement.

Who wrote the post and when?

Adam Goucher wrote it, and the Selenium blog published it on July 6, 2012.

Does the roundup say which linked tools still work?

No. It records the links and commentary at publication time; check current official sources before relying on any tool or advice.

Does it report a time-to-first-byte result?

No. It points to different ways of measuring time to first byte but supplies no attributable statistic or study result.