• External links
• Features
• How it works
  • Docker
  • Hosting Providers
  • Puppeteer
  • Playwright
• Extending (NodeJS SDK)
• Debugger
  • Install debugger
• Usage with other libraries
• Motivations
• Licensing

1. Full documentation site
2. Live Debugger (using browserless.io)
3. Docker

General

• Parallelism and request-queueing are built-in + configurable.
• Fonts and emoji's working out-of-the-box.
• Debug Viewer for actively viewing/debugging running sessions.
• An interactive puppeteer debugger, so you can see what the headless browser is doing and use its DevTools.
• Works with unforked Puppeteer and Playwright.
• Configurable session timers and health-checks to keep things running smoothly.
• Error tolerant: if Chrome dies it won't.
• Support for running and development on Apple's M1 machines

Cloud-only

Our cloud accounts include all the general features plus extras, such as:

• Inbuilt residential proxy
• /unblock API for avoiding detectors
• Automated captcha solving for getting past mandatory checks
• Hybrid automations for streaming login windows during scripts
• /reconnect API for keeping browsers alive for reuse
• REST APIs for tasks such as retrieving HTML, PDFs or Lighthouse metrics
• SSO, tokens and user roles

Browserless listens for both incoming websocket requests, generally issued by most libraries, as well as pre-build REST APIs to do common functions (PDF generation, images and so on). When a websocket connects to Browserless it starts Chrome and proxies your request into it. Once the session is done then it closes and awaits for more connections. Some libraries use Chrome's HTTP endpoints, like /json to inspect debug-able targets, which Browserless also supports.

You still execute the script itself which gives you total control over what library you want to choose and when to do upgrades. This also comes with the benefit of keep your code proprietary and able to run on numerous platforms. We simply take care of all the browser-aspects and offer a management layer on top of the browser.

Docker

[!TIP] See more options on our full documentation site.

1. docker run -p 3000:3000 ghcr.io/browserless/chromium
2. Visit http://localhost:3000/docs to see the documentation site.
3. See more at our docker package.

Hosting Providers

We offer a first-class hosted product located here. Alternatively you can host this image on just about any major platform that offers hosting for docker. Our hosted service takes care of all the machine provisioning, notifications, dashboards and monitoring plus more:

• Easily upgrade and toggle between versions at the press of a button. No managing repositories and other code artifacts.
• Never need to update or pull anything from docker. There's literally zero software to install to get started.
• Scale your consumption up or down with different plans. We support up to thousands of concurrent sessions at a given time.

If you're interested in using this image for commercial aspects, then please read the below section on licensing.

Puppeteer

Puppeteer allows you to specify a remote location for chrome via the browserWSEndpoint option. Setting this for Browserless is a single line of code change.

Before

const browser = await puppeteer.launch();

After

const browser = await puppeteer.connect({
  browserWSEndpoint: 'ws://localhost:3000',
});

Playwright

We support running with playwright via their their browser's remote connection protocols interface out of the box. Just make sure that your Docker image, playwright browser type and endpoint match:

Before

import pw from "playwright";
const browser = await pw.firefox.launch();

After

docker run -p 3000:3000 ghcr.io/browserless/firefox
# or ghcr.io/browserless/multi for all the browsers

import pw from "playwright-core";

const browser = await pw.firefox.connect(
  'ws://localhost:3000/firefox/playwright',
);

After that, the rest of your code remains the same with no other changes required.

Browserless comes with built-in extension capabilities, and allows for extending nearly any aspect of the system (for Version 2+). For more details on how to write your own routes, build docker images, and more, see our SDK README.md or simply run "npx @browserless.io/browserless create" in a terminal and follow the onscreen prompts.

You can install a first-party interactive debugger for Browserless, that makes writing scripts faster and interactive. You can take advantage of things like debugger; calls and the page's console output to see what's happening on the page while your script is running. All of the Chrome devtools are there at your disposal.

A small list of features includes:

• Running debugger; and console.log calls
• Errors in the script are caught and show up in the console tab
• DOM inspection, watch network requests, and even see how the page is rendering
• Exporting you debugging script as a Node project
• Everything included in Chrome DevTools

Install debugger

Installing the debugger is as simple as running the install:debugger script after the project has been built. This way:

$ npm run build
$ npm run install:debugger #or npm install:dev

You will then see the debugger url during the startup process.

---------------------------------------------------------
| browserless.io
| To read documentation and more, load in your browser:
|
| OpenAPI: http://localhost:3000/docs
| Full Documentation: https://docs.browserless.io/
| Debbuger: http://localhost:3000/debugger/?token=6R0W53R135510
---------------------------------------------------------

Most libraries allow you to specify a remote instance of Chrome to interact with. They are either looking for a websocket endpoint, a host and port, or some address. Browserless supports these by default, however if you're having issues please make an issue in this project and we'll try and work with the library authors to get them integrated with browserless. Please note that in V2 we no longer support selenium or webdriver integrations.

You can find a much larger list of supported libraries on our documentation site.

Running Chrome on lambda or on your own is a fantastic idea but in practice is quite challenging in production. You're met with pretty tough cloud limits, possibly building Chrome yourself, and then dealing with odd invocation issues should everything else go ok. A lot of issues in various repositories are due to just challenges of getting Chrome running smoothly in AWS (see here). You can see for yourself by going to nearly any library and sorting issues by most commented.

Getting Chrome running well in docker is also a challenge as there's quiet a few packages you need in order to get Chrome running. Once that's done then there's still missing fonts, getting libraries to work with it, and having limitations on service reliability. This is also ignoring CVEs, access-controls, and scaling strategies.

All of these issues prompted us to build a first-class image and workflow for interacting with Chrome in a more streamlined way. With Browserless you never have to worry about fonts, extra packages, library support, security, or anything else. It just works reliably like any other modern web service. On top of that it comes with a prescribed approach on how you interact with Chrome, which is through socket connections (similar to a database or any other external appliance). What this means is that you get the ability to drive Chrome remotely without having to do updates/releases to the thing that runs Chrome since it's divorced from your application.

SPDX-License-Identifier: SSPL-1.0 OR Browserless Commercial License.

If you want to use Browserless to build commercial sites, applications, or in a continuous-integration system that's closed-source then you'll need to purchase a commercial license. This allows you to keep your software proprietary whilst still using browserless. You can purchase a commercial license here. A commercial license grants you:

• Priority support on issues and features.
• On-premise running as well as running on public cloud providers for commercial/CI purposes for proprietary systems.
• Ability to modify the source (forking) for your own purposes.
• A new admin user-interface.

Not only does it grant you a license to run such a critical piece of infrastructure, but you are also supporting further innovation in this space and our ability to contribute to it.

If you are creating an open source application under a license compatible with the Server Side License 1.0, you may use Browserless under those terms.

Latest

• Dependency updates.

Latest

• Dependency updates.
• Fix issues with Firefox when using a proxy.
• Fixes for the /meta API in SDK projects.
• Lint fixes.
• Link fixes in this CHANGELOG.md file.

v2.24.1

• Dependency updates.
• Fixes for /performance API in SDK projects.

v2.24.0

• Dependency updates.
• Supports:
  • puppeteer-core: 23.10.1.
  • playwright-core: 1.49.0, 1.48.2, 1.47.2, 1.46.1, 1.45.3 and 1.44.1.
  • Chromium: 131.0.6778.33.
  • Chrome: 131.0.6778.109.
  • Firefox: 132.0.
  • Webkit: 18.2.
• New /meta API route for getting details about the container (versions, etc).
• Bump NodeJS to v22.11.0.
• Add libwebp-dev for Webkit.
• Add support for trackingId and /kill/{id} and /kill/all.
• Prettier, internal fixes and improvements.

v2.23.0

• Dependency updates.
• Fixes --proxy-bypass-list CLI arguments not being passed through with function API.
• Addition of fonts-open-sans to image.

v2.22.0

• Dependency updates.
• New SDK project command of npm run install:browsers to help with browser management.
• SDK projects now appropriately handle routes when only certain browsers are available.

v2.21.1

• Dependency updates.
• Ensure we don't load Chrome routes for SDK projects running linux/arm64.

v2.21.0

• Dependency updates.
• Supports:
  • puppeteer-core: 23.4.1
  • playwright-core: 1.47.2, 1.46.1, 1.45.3, 1.44, and 1.43.
• Stream PDF using createPDFStream() in the PDF APIs.
• Inject file-system managers in browser-manager.

v2.20.2

• Dependency updates.
• Adds a fix to SDK routes that might not require a browser but browserless will still make one.

v2.20.1

• Dependency updates.
• Fix issues where connecting to a bad /devtools/page route can cause 500's.

v2.20.0

• Dependency updates.
• Supports puppeteer@23.3.0.
• Support playwright@1.47.0.
• Use installed playwright-core for downloading browser binaries instead of npx, ensuring the appropriate browsers are installed.
• Fix JSON routes 404-ing when charset is specified in the content-type header.
• Disable the built-in debugger by setting ENABLE_DEBUGGER=false.
• Automatically run prettier on file save in VS Code.
• Windows fixes for SDK projects.
• README link fixes.

v2.19.0

• Dependency updates.
• Drop sort-keys for eslint integrations.
• Fix devtools URLs when PROXY is set and contains a path.
• Disable auth when using Chrome's internal /page APIs.
• Small fixes for new eslint rules.

v2.18.0

• Dependency updates.
• Supports puppeteer-core@23.1.1.
• Supports playwright-core@1.46.1, 1.44.1, 1.43.1, 1.42.1, 1.41.2.
• Trailing slashes on routes now won't 404, so /chrome and /chrome/ are treated as the same and will route properly.
• /function API now works properly when applying a 3rd-party proxy.

v2.17.0

• Dependency updates.
• Hide token in logs on startup.
• Fixes an issue where using --proxy-server now works with /function-API calls.
• Adds support for the following CORS headers via env variables (headers and their corresponding config names are below). Please note that these are very permissive by default, but only set when ENABLE_CORS is true!
  • 'Access-Control-Allow-Credentials': CORS_ALLOW_CREDENTIALS (default '*')
  • 'Access-Control-Allow-Headers': CORS_ALLOW_HEADERS (default: '*')
  • 'Access-Control-Allow-Methods': CORS_ALLOW_METHODS (default: 'OPTIONS, POST, GET')
  • 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': CORS_ALLOW_ORIGIN (default: '*')
  • 'Access-Control-Expose-Headers': CORS_EXPOSE_HEADERS (default: '*')
  • 'Access-Control-Max-Age': CORS_MAX_AGE (default: '2592000')

v2.16.1

• Dependency updates.
• Fixes numerous SDK issues when creating and building new projects.

v2.16.0

• Dependency updates.
• Better extension handling and merging when passing in custom extensions.
• Fixes a bug where a failed job (error thrown) causes the internal queue to drain.
• Prettier and other source improvements.

v2.15.0

• Bug fix to avoid removing healthy jobs from limiter when a job fails
• Dependency updates.

v2.14.0

Potentially Breaking

• Merged duplicate code in browsers and fixed name WebkitPlaywright to WebKitPlaywright (capitalized "K").
• Devtools now bundled into the repository at build-time for the /debugger route.
• Dependency updates.

v2.13.0

Potentially Breaking

• The browser hook now gets the req property for the full request instead of meta.
• Now embeds the debugger located at /debugger.
• Preliminary support for trackingId.
• Bug fixes when dealing with ignoreHTTPSError parameters.
• Bug fixes to the /function API when it throws errors.
• Prettier fixes.
• Dependency updates.

v2.12.0

Potentially Breaking

• SDK projects should now use conventional class method properties versus the "fat-arrow" style instance methods.

Updates

• Support for multi-version playwright (puppeteer coming soon). Browserless now checks the version in the User-Agent header and loads the appropriate playwright server for it.
• Dependency updates.

v2.11.0

• Wrap the pressure response in a pressure key.
• New keepAlive property on browser objects for downstream SDK projects to flag.
• Dependency updates.

v2.10.0

• Adds back in the /pressure API from V1.
• Dependency updates.

v2.9.0

• Dependency updates.
• Debugger is now included and mounted under the /debugger path.
• Browserless now uses the Logger utility internally. Better logs for certain classes as well.
• Fix number of connected clients when using the Page websocket route.
• Allows "HEAD" requests for most "GET"-based APIs.

v2.8.0

April 12, 2024 Potentially Breaking

• New Logger class and SDK primitives in support of that.
• Routes now get an instance of Logger, before the browser argument or as the last argument for HTTP routes.

Updates

• Numerous SDK fixes and updates in the CLI.
• Dependency updates.

v2.7.1

April 11, 2024

• Fixes a boot-looping issue due to bad startup script. Adds tests for this as well.
• Dependency updates.

v2.7.0

• Support for Running GPUs
• Dependency updates.

v2.6.1

• Fixes for function API calls when behind an external URL.
• Dependency updates.

v2.6.0

• Adds a GET /active route that responds with no message and a 204 http code.
• Move to NodeJS 20.12.0.
• README, CHANGELOG, Migration and spelling fixes.
• New /active route for determining if server is able to handle requests.
• Better logging around 404'd HTTP requests.
• Dependency updates.

v2.5.0

• Config now allows for programmatic getting and setting of the external address.
• Support for a new Hooks module for setting up hooks in a more SDK-friendly manner.
• Adds new exports for building downstream SDK projects more easily, versus using our CLI:
  • getArgSwitches
  • getSourceFiles
  • installDependencies
  • buildDockerImage
  • buildTypeScript
• README.md updates.
• Dependency updates.

v2.4.0

Potentially Breaking

• Drops support for recording and screencasting in favor of library-based approaches.
• playwright@1.42.1 and puppeteer@22.4.0.

Other Changes

• SDK routes now take precedence over core routes when a path-collision occurs.
• Support SDK projects with their own static directories.
• Adds support for user-specified stop methods in SDK Module extensions.
• Core modules now extend EventEmitter, making them able to publish events.
• Fixes issues with addStyleTag happening before goto calls in REST APIs.
• Dependency updates.

v2.3.0

Potentially Breaking

• Routes must define a unique name property in order to remove them in SDK projects.
• A new browserless object in the SDK package.json file can specify module overrides, in camelCase, instead of using a path-based semantic.
• Fixes issues with npx playwright-core install... potentially installing other browser versions than what is a dependency of Browserless.
• Fixes and other general improvements.
• Dependency updates.

v2.2.0

Potentially Breaking

• ghcr.io/browserless/chrome now runs actual Chrome and not Chromium! If you were using this tag please update to use ghcr.io/browserless/chromium!
  • This Chrome tag uses the new routing convention below. If you get random 404's, please add /chrome to the start of the route. EG, /pdf becomes /chrome/pdf.
  • Websocket connections follow a similar breakage in that the URL will go from something like ws://localhost:3000 to ws://localhost:3000/chrome.
• Adds a new ghcr.io/browserless/chromium, and updates ghcr.io/browserless/chrome to use actual Chrome.
• New and current APIs now follow a routing convention of /$BROWSER/$ACTION. In our Chrome image, you'll see /chrome/pdf for the PDF route as opposed to /pdf.
  • To keep things backwards compatible, all our prior REST APIs still have the same path as well as the new semantic, but only in the multi and chromium tags.
  • These backwards compatible routes are ONLY available in ghcr.io/browserless/chromium and ghcr.io/browserless/multi.
• Refer to the embedded documentation site for any and all updates on API differences.

Other Changes

• HTTPRoutes and WebSocket routes can now have multiple paths to listen on.
• Add clean command to @browserless.io/browserless CLI.
• Adds support for /json/list, /json/new, /json/version and json/protocol APIs (Chrome and Chromium only).
  • When both Chrome and Chromium are present (in the case of the multi image), browserless opts for Chromium for these requests.
• Removes legacy browser.json files since browserless now generates those and caches when requested.
• Stable docker images are coming! Please be sure to see our packages page for stable tags.
• Only verify that internally managed browsers are installed when starting.
• Preliminary support for --headless=shell.
• More unit-tests for the Chrome /json APIs.
• Dependency updates.

v2.1.0

• Dependency updates.
• Name is now @browserless.io/browserless to reflect our npm package.
• NEW: SDK is now live here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@browserless.io/browserless.
• Drops gulp and other gulp utilities in favor of our own. Move to modules in scripts dir.
• Many private class properties now use protected so they can be referenced in SDK extensions.
• Adds a /json/version route for older libraries that use it.
• Merge startup/test scripts into scripts dir.
• Moves installed browsers to /usr/local/bin/playwright-browsers.
• Merge root files into package.json where possible.
• README updates and fixes.
• Numerous link and copyright fixes.

v2.0.0

browserless 2.0.0 represents the best body of work after running browserless for over 5 years. It contains mostly the same functionality and more, and is rebuilt to be more modular and offer a NodeJS SDK. It's also much lighter and faster than prior versions and includes a lot of semantic changes.

Features

• ECMAScript style module loading and dependencies.
• New routing system using purely NodeJS's HTTP module.
• Better logs and concurrency/queueing parameters.
• Support for running the other major browser vendors in the same format and package.
• The service now compiles TypeScript to runtime JOI validation for our routes.
• Soon: upcoming support for extensions, long-running sessions and more.

Breaking Changes

• Remove support for Selenium.
• The /function API now runs inside the context of the browser and not in Node.
• Drop support for keep-alive and pre-booting.
• Support for a single launch query-string parameter for launching a browser versus many individual parameters.

Minor Changes

• Many docker parameters have been renamed, but are backwards compatible. See config.ts for details.

v1.61.0

• FINAL of V1 for browserless/chrome. See notes on V2 here
• Dependency updates.
• Added fonts-urw-base35.
• Supports puppeteer 1.20, 10.4.0, 13.1.3, 14.4.1, 16.2.0, 19.7.5 and 21.4.1.
• Supports playwright 1.39, 1.38, 1.37, 1.36, 1.35, 1.34, and 1.33.
• Fixes an issue where keep-alive chrome instances aren't properly tracked when browser.close is called.
• Fix improper handling of HTTP writing on bare sockets with 500 errors.

v1.60.2

• Dependency updates.
• Fixes an issue where calls to GET /sessions sometimes return blank results.
• Drop puppeteer 21.3.1 in favor of 21.3.6.

v1.60.1

• Dependency updates.
• Drop the partner repo from builds as we no longer use it for installing flash.
• Bump to Ubuntu lunar.
• Bump to NodeJS 18.17.0
• Package.json engines.node now reflects what node version we run on the docker image.
• Drops support for playwright@1.33 and default playwright to 1.38.
• Drops support for puppeteer@21.1.1 in favor of 21.3.1.
• Replaces legacy request module with Node's native fetch for webhooks.
• Drops node-fetch across the board in favor of fetch native.

v1.60.0

• Dependency updates.
• New build arguments in our Dockerfile to apply different named base repo.
• New CHROME_STABLE_VERSION build arg for specifying a particular chrome stable version.
• Fixes in postinstall hooks for various platforms and chrome-stable.
• NEW: waitFor properties in our APIs now supports an object with selector + timeouts for more fine tuning.
• Bump puppeteer 20.x.x to 21.1.1 (116.0.5845.96).
• Supports playwright versions 1.37, 1.36, 1.35, 1.34, and 1.33.
• Fixes in deploy script to handle versions, platforms and architectures.
• Fixes an issue where headless defaults to DEFAULT_STEALTH.
• New PREBOOT_QUANTITY for overriding the amount of pre-booted instances of Chrome.
• Allow using a host's display by setting DISPLAY env variable.
• Link fixes in README.md.

v1.59.0

• Dependency updates.
• Bump to Ubuntu Kinetic release + updates to use relevant packages.
• In support of puppeteer 20+, updates to env.js for finding/symlinking Chrome.
• Supports playwright 1.33, 1.32, 1.31, and 1.29.. Drops support for earlier versions.
• Ad-blocking and other request-interception in browserless is graceful using the isInterceptResolutionHandled method.

v1.58.0

• Dependency updates.
• Documentation link fixes.
• Add new required lib libu2f-udev.
• Support for puppeteer@19.7.5.
• Supports playwright versions: 1.27, 1.28, 1.29, 1.30 and 1.31.
• Better internal TypeScript definitions.
• Print's a few extra log-lines at startup for links to various resources.
• /kill/all now supports rebooting when PREBOOT is turned on.
• Fixes an issue with chromedriver boot-looping in modern versions.
• Adds support for --headless=new.
• Fixes an issue where user-data-dirs aren't deleted due to a crashed container.

v1.57.0

• Dependency updates.
• Add back in puppeteer@13.1.3 for PDF/Screenshot performance.
• Replace puppeteer@18.0.5 in favor of puppeteer@19.2.2.
• Better puppeteer install/binary path lookups.
• Support for the following playwright versions via the /playwright path:
  • 1.23.3
  • 1.24.2
  • 1.25.2
  • 1.26.1
  • 1.27.1

v1.56.0

• Dependency updates.
• Fixes various puppeteer issues with regards to revision information and browser-fetching.
• Fixes a Selenium issue where failed browsers can cause session to zombie.
• Small fix for route error handling.
• Better selenium W3C support.

v1.55.0

Potentially Breaking

• Update base OS from Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04.
• Drops path support for both addScriptTag and addStyleTag. Use url or inject content directly.

---

• Dependency updates.
• We now support multiple versions of playwright via playwright-core. browserless checks the User-Agent string and tries to load a compatible playwright server at runtime in order to avoid breakages between versions.
• New scrollPage boolean parameter for the screenshot and other relevant APIs.
• browserless now writes appropriately formatted HTTP and WebSocket messages for non-2xx responses.
• Better CI coverage with prior puppeteer versions.
• Adds back a browser.json file in our docker images for easier CDP-related queries.
• A new PORT arg is available at build time in order to specify a PORT to listen onto.
• Updated links for browserless documentation in docs.

v1.54.1

• Dependency updates.
• Add browser.json file to git tags.
• Prettier fixes on source.
• deploy.js file fixes for creating production tags.
• Fix: add the userDataDir option so that we don't fill disks when using stealth.
• Fix: allow disconnect listeners to fire before closing.

v1.54.0

• Dependency updates.
• Move to using mocha for better esm support.
• Drop puppeteer 13.6.0 in favor of 14.4.1.
• Utilize puppeteer 14.4.1 for chrome-stable.
• New internal getCDPClient for loading a page's CPD connection.

v1.53.0

• Dependency updates.
• Bump browserless:base to 1.16.0.
• Drop --quiet from deploy scripts.
• arm64 support for latest as well as puppeteer at versions 9,10 and 13.
• Update puppeteer 13 from 13.5.2 to 13.6.0 (revision 982053).
• README updates.

v1.52.1

• Dependency updates.
• Playwright example correction in README.md.
• Use revision 970485 for puppeteer 13.x.x, latest, chrome-stable and arm64.
• When using KEEPALIVE and PREBOOT, don't create new blank pages, and use the existing one instead.

v1.52.0

• Dependency updates.
• Added in new fonts: fonts-gfs-neohellenic.
• Minor code formatting changes.
• Drop puppeteer@13.1.3 in favor of 13.5.2.
• Make heapdump an optional dependency as it's not always used, and add it back in.
• Utilize fs/promise vs home-rolled promisified utils.
• Fix an issue where PREBOOT and KEEPALIVE might return an undefined browser.
• Logging when file-protocol requests happen and terminate a session.
• Move the browser process exit listener into the puppeteer-provider for better session cleanup.
• Allow "headfull" playwright sessions.
• Don't await chrome-helper's closing of the browser as it's not truly async.
• Remove body-parser in favor of express's JSON and other parsers.
• Fixes an issue where using a user-data-dir that doesn't exist causes chrome to crash.
• Add in more unit and integration tests.

v1.52.0

• Dependency updates.
• Added in new fonts: fonts-gfs-neohellenic.
• Minor code formatting changes.
• Drop puppeteer@13.1.3 in favor of 13.5.2.
• Make heapdump an optional dependency as it's not always used, and add it back in.
• Utilize fs/promise vs home-rolled promisified utils.
• Fix an issue where PREBOOT and KEEPALIVE might return an undefined browser.
• Logging when file-protocol requests happen and terminate a session.
• Move the browser process exit listener into the puppeteer-provider for better session cleanup.
• Allow "headfull" playwright sessions.
• Don't await chrome-helper's closing of the browser as it's not truly async.
• Remove body-parser in favor of express's JSON and other parsers.
• Fixes an issue where using a user-data-dir that doesn't exist causes chrome to crash.
• Add in more unit and integration tests.

v1.51.1

• Dependency updates.
• Updates the vm2 module to 3.9.7.

v1.51.0

• Dependency updates.
• New viewport option inside of the content API.
• New encoding option in the screenshot API.
• Drop puppeteer@12.x.x in favor of 13.x.x.
• Fixes in our deploy scripts.
• Fixes for windows binaries in our postinstall hook.
• Fixes an issue where playwright tries to use a pre-booted chrome instance.
• Small type updates.

v1.50.0

• Dependency updates.
• Drops support for puppeteer-4.0.1 in favor of puppeteer-12.0.1.
• Chrome-stable now utilizes puppeteer @ 12.0.1.
• Support for arm64 via production tags (1-arm64) as well as in latest.
• Static JSON files (protocol.json, version.json) are built at runtime on their first request and then cached in memory.
• Bumps browserless/base to 1.14.0.
• New selector property for screenshot-ing a single DOM node in the screenshot API.
• puppeteerVersions in the package.json file has been rename do chromeVersions.
• Internal changes for deploying production tag scripts.
• Consolidate scripts for postinstall.
• Drop support for heapdump due to its age and lack of platform varieties.
• New /metrics/total route for summing up all statistics in a single JSON payload.

v1.49.1

• Dependency updates.
• Fix webhook not using timeout URL.

v1.49.0

• Dependency updates.
• Support for ARM64 builds by dropping flash for it.
• Bump puppeteer 10.2.0 for 10.4.0.
• New puppeteer-hook for injecting a puppeteer-compatible library, eg. puppeteer-extra.

v1.48.0

Potentially Breaking

• API calls with html in their payloads now use the page.setContent API versus a prior hack using one-time network-request interception (example here). Old versions of puppeteer might not work properly with this (<= 5.x.x). This effects the following APIS: /content, /pdf and /screenshot.

---

• Dependency updates.
• Bump browserless/base to 1.12.0 (add user-id to blessuser of BLESS_USER_ID=999).
• Bumps puppeteer @10.x.x to 10.2.0 with revision 901912.
• Makes API calls use setContent properly now (no more one-time network interception). This fixes certain issues with images not loading in PDFs and screenshots.
• Fix some typings in tests.

v1.47.0

• Dependency updates.
• Bump browserless/base to 1.11.0.
• Add new lint task and rename GitHub actions tasks, remove tslint.
• Lint and prettier fixes.
• Delay url parsing until after before hook runs.
• New meta object param for page hooks (passing through arbitrary meta data set by prior hooks).
• New FUNCTION_ENV_VARS environment variable pass through an allow-list of environment variables for functions to access.
• Fix someObject.hasOwnProperty to Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call.

v1.46.0

• Dependency updates.
• Move to Node 16.x.x.
• Bump browserless/base to 1.10.0.
• Limit x-response-url to 100 characters.
• Add support for puppeteer@10.x.x.
• Add maxConcurrent stat for metrics API + log stats every 5 minutes to stdout.
• Some performance improvements to how pages/browsers are setup and torn down.
• Add API_DOCS_ENDPOINT as a filterable API to deny access to.
• Minor code reformatting from prettier.
• Better page setup and logging.
• Fixes DEFAULT_STEALTH for self-hosted deployments.
• Improvements on how chrome is closed.

1.45.0

• Dependency Updates.
• Support for playwright proxies.
• Fixes an issue with larger headers potentially causing load-balancers to crash and fail.

v1.44.0

Potentially Breaking

• PROXY_HOST and PROXY_PORT are now replaced with a single PROXY_URL param, eg: https://www.mybrowserless.com/optional/paths. When set, browserless uses this fully-qualified URL to build out links back to its internal debugger and sessions. Useful when you're instance is behind a proxy or load-balancer of some kind.

---

• Dependency Updates.
• Use recent Node 14 (browserless-base 1.7.0).
• New rejectResourceTypes property on most APIs (content, screenshot, pdf, etc.).
• Allow serving of file:// protocols when explicitly enabled (default is off due to security concerns). Set ALLOW_FILE_PROTOCOL=true in your env params.
• The /pressure API now takes into account CPU/Memory consumption, and adds a "reason" property for why the machine might be not available.
• Fixes an issue where playwright couldn't download files.
• You can now filter /sessions calls with a trackingId parameter.
• detached functions now return a trackingId when present.
• More types, tests, and utility consolidation.

v1.43.0

• Dependency Updates.
• Fixes an issue where --user-data-dirs aren't deleted properly, potentially filling disks.
• Changes CPU/Memory checks to be user-based and not the entire OS.
• Adds tests for the user-data-dir issue.

v1.42.0

• Dependency Updates.
• Move to Node 14!
• Use esModuleInterop for imports.
• Remove page.waitFor in favor of downstream methods.
• Adds new ?stealth parameter for API calls (see puppeteer-extra-stealth-plugin).
• New DEFAULT_STEALTH param for making stealth calls by default.
• Fixes ignoreDefaultArgs in chrome stable.
• Ensure temp user-data-dirs are always cleaned up.

v1.41.0

• Dependency Updates.
• New SESSION_CHECK_FAIL_URL webhook for when pre-session checks fail.
• Health checks now take the last two CPU/Memory samples to determine if a failure (5 minutes).

v1.40.2

• Dependency Updates.
• Fix potentially unhandled stream error events when closing chrome.
• Bump puppeteer to 5.4.1 for major 5.

v1.40.1

• Dependency Updates
• New SOCKET_CLOSE_METHOD for better load-balancing behavior when under load.

v1.40.0

• Dependency Updates
• Support for playwright 1.4.0 and greater. See more here.
• New PRE_REQUEST_HEALTH_CHECK env variable to check CPU/Memory prior to running a session. Set MAX_CPU_PERCENT or MAX_MEMORY_PERCENT for setting these thresholds. Responds with a 503 HTTP code if CPU/Memory are high on any inbound session (API, puppeteer or webdriver).

v1.39.0

• Dependency Updates
• Fixes a crash due to browser.close streams not completing properly.
• Adds a dumpio query-string parameter for launching with puppeteer.

v1.38.0

• Dependency Updates
• Fixes a memory leak when browsers don't close properly.
• Adds a /heapdump route for capturing heap dumps. Turn on by setting ENABLE_HEAP_DUMP=true in your docker env.
• emulateMedia fixes on the pdf route.
• CodeQL implemented.
• README fixes.

v1.37.2

• Dependency Updates
• Fixes an issue where the webserver can crash after rejecting a request.
• Fixes deployment script not waiting for zip files to be finished unzipped.

1.37.1

• Dependency Updates
• Fixes an issue in webdriver not starting properly.

1.37.0

Potentially Breaking

• Due to stability issues, puppeteer version 3.x.x and 4.x.x now use chromium revision 782078. See our package.json for details.

---

• Dependency Updates
• README Updates
• Fixes an issue for secured containers using prometheus (plus tests).
• Support for puppeteer 5.2.1

1.36.0

• Dependency Updates
• Drops support for puppeteer 2.0.0 and 3.0.4, please use 2.1.1 and 3.3.0 for those revisions.
• Adds support for puppeteer 5.0.0.
• Bug-fix with the server randomly closing with an uncaught error event thrown from inside underlying socket connection.
• Adds back in --disable-dev-shm-usage to default arguments for better SHM performance.

1.35.0

• Dependency Updates
• New maxTime, minTime, meanTime and totalTime of all sessions for a given period in /stats.
• Bugfix on CPU/Memory triggering health failure webhooks.
• Fix issues in websocket errors by awaiting browser.close (or 5 seconds, whichever is quickest).

v1.34.0

Potentially Breaking

• screencast API no longer supports audio or the setPreferences function in order to offer a better video experience. In order to set the width/height, simply set a page width height to what you'd like.
• chrome-stable will now use puppeteer@3.1.0 for better compatibility.

---

• Dependency updates.
• Drops puppeteer version 1.20.0 and below.
• Move browserless/base to v1.5.0.
• Puppeteer support for 3.3.0 (3.2.x and 3.1.x have the same chromium revision).
• Fixes trackingId on pre-booted sessions.
• about:blank pages now are returned in the /sessions API for transparency of open sessions/browsers.

1.33.1

• Dependency updates.
• Fix socket errors from accidentally firing error webhooks.

1.33.0

• Drops support for puppeteer 1.17.x and 1.18.x
• Support for puppeteer 3.0.x
• Dependency updates
• Fix reject stat firing on debugger pages not being found
• Consolidates more types.

1.32.0

• Dependency Updates.
• Adds roboto fonts.
• Updates pressure API to take account of running browsers in the running count.
• Adds maxConcurrent, maxQueued, cpu and memory to pressure.

1.31.1

• Dependency Updates.
• Fixes a small issue where XVFB doesn't start properly during an automated restart.

1.31.0

• Dependency Updates.
• Allows trackingId on uploaded files to save in the appropriate tracking-ID folder.
• New userAgent param for setting user-agent in API requests.
• Fixes an issue where chrome wasn't being closed in rare cases.

1.30.0

• Dependency Updates.
• Updates to Node 13 for speed and memory improvements.
• browserless/base@1.4.0

1.29.1

• Dependency Updates.
• Fixes how deploy script determines errors when running child commands.
• Fixes issues when many selenium sessions can potentially fill up disk space.

1.29.0

• Dependency updates.
• Uses pipe's for most API calls and other internal endpoints for faster/better throughput. Works only for headless API/puppeteer calls.
• Allows custom lighthouse configs via POST config property.
• Patches vm2.
• Before hooks no longer end requests forcefully -- external hooks must manually end the request/sockets themselves.
• Properly passes socket errors to the error handler/webhook

1.28.0

• Dependency updates.
• Sets a system-default font of Ubuntu for most sites that use system-ui in their font declarations.
• Fixes health-check failure webhooks.
• New PROXY_HOST, PROXY_PORT and PROXY_SSL for external load-balancers. See docsite for more info.
• Moves over to GH actions over Travis for CI.

1.27.0

• Dependency updates.
• New manipulate params for screenshots, allowing for resizing, flipping and more.
• Better tracking of chrome-process for cleanup of zombied sessions.

1.26.1

• Dependency updates.
• Added git as a dependency in dockerfile for git-based npm dependencies to work.
• Fixed an issue in start.sh so that errors bubble up properly and close the process.
• Bumps browserless/base to 1.2.0.

1.26.0

• Dependency updates.
• Dropping pre-push hooks for speed.
• Consolidate all interfaces/types to a types.d.ts file.
• Fixes an issue where numerous chrome instances launch when prebooting.
• Fixes an issue where incoming requests don't use the pre-booted chrome instance.
• Uses page.setViewport when --window-size is set in params to help with screenshots not appearing properly (chromedriver only).

1.25.0

• Dependency updates.
• Stricter build-time arguments for chromium and chromedriver assets.
• Better XVFB functionality.
• New parameters for most API's, addScriptTag and addStyleTag, accepting an array of scripts/styles respectively.
• Drop support for puppeteer@1.17.0.
• Proper support for parsing ignoreDefaultArgs query-parameters.

1.24.0

• Dependency updates.
• Bugfix on our debugger's play button being off-center.
• Fixes driver.close() calls not cleaning the browser.
• New /GET option for most our APIs. Stringify your JSON and add a ?body=YOUR-JSON with a /GET call to most of our functions! Requires ENABLE_API_GET=true in you docker env variables.
• WebSocket (Socket) exception handling and logging.
• More integration and unit tests added.

1.23.1

• Fixes an issue in chromedriver where commands would hang.
• Fixes an issue in chromedriver sessions not being removed properly.
• Fixes and pins the base image so that headful sessions work again.

1.23.0

• Dependency updates.
• Use apt-get to install dumb-init.
• Add a LANG arg in docker.
• New setJavaScriptEnabled property for REST APIs.
• Fixes an issue with waitFor functions in REST API calls.
• Fixes issues when PREBOOT_CHROME and KEEPALIVE are true.
• Updates protocol and host information in ad-blocking.

1.22.0

• Dependency updates.
• Removal of unnecessary '--disable-dev-shm-usage'
• Squelching of chromedriver's verbose args unless DEBUG=* is set.
• New /kill/${id} route for remotely killing a certain browser.
• Allowing of sub-child routes in workspaces.

1.21.0

• Dependency updates.
• New viewport property option for PDF endpoint.
• The /stats endpoint now runs in a separate process meaning it can be parallelized.
• Fixed a bug where hardware monitoring can cause the container to restart/crash.
• Fixes an issue with the file-chooser API not working in puppeteer.

1.20.0

• Dependency updates.
• New /scrape API!

1.19.0

• Dependency updates.
• Fixes chrome-stable's binary chromedriver.
• Move over to Node 12.
• Bugfix on width/height in the screencast API.
• Support for puppeteer@2.0.0.
• Fixed issues with the devtools JS files missing.
• Adds support for blacklisting routes in Docker.
• Consolidates hooks into a hooks module.
• Allows Selenium to specify download-paths and pausing via preferences.
• Fixes an issue in certain JSON-based CDP libraries.
• Function API's can now run incognito mode with a new Docker param.

1.18.0

• Dependency updates
• Better IS_DOCKER check for kubernetes.
• Updates to README.md, spelling fixes and Slack link.
• Fixes to debugger and larger code bodies.
• Removal of analytics in debugger.
• Screencast improvements and adding ability to set new options.
• New waitFor property in our APIs (content, pdf and screenshot).
• Don't allow file requests on the debugger for security reasons.
• Better metrics monitoring.
• singleRun mode in docker.
• New prometheus support!
• Fixing issues with keeping chrome alive (only closing once TTL is met).

1.17.0

• Dependency updates
• Splitting docker images into two repositories for faster builds and pulls
• Adding in external routing capabilities
• New error hook
• More/better types
• Updating deviceScaleFactor in API's for more granular control.
• Better chromedriver failure messages.

1.16.0

• Adding ffmpeg to the docker dependency list.
• Add timecut as a dependency for recording.
• Better logs on chrome PID's and closing forcefully.
• Fixed DEFAULT_CHROME => DEFAULT_HEADLESS.
• Fixed a bug where xvfb doesn't start in time.
• Use SIGKILL for killing chromedriver.
• /json/version now returns a webSocketDebuggerUrl.

1.15.0

• New page and browser hooks for docker images that FROM browserless.
• bluebird added as a module for function and other endpoints.
• More dependency updates.

1.14.1

• Bugfix when running multiple "headfull" sessions.
• Dependency updates.

1.14.0

• New WORKSPACE_DELETE_EXPIRED and WORKSPACE_EXPIRE_DAYS to auto-cleanup workspace dirs.
• README.md cleanup now that HTTPS is no longer required.
• Support for ~ in docker env parameters.
• More alignment with how chromedriver and puppeteer sessions get cleaned up.
• /session API now returns browserWSEndpoint and browserId properties for having multiple debuggers connected.
• Support for reconnecting(!!). When a ?keepalive=KEEP-ALIVE-IN-MS is seen in the puppeteer.connect call we keep the browser active for that many ms after the debugger disconnects.
• New /kill/all route which closes all actively running sessions.
• New internal scheduler module, making future things like cron-based jobs a possibility.
• Better internal types.

1.13.0

• A minor refactor to consolidate calls to url.parse for performance gains.
• Introduces a per-session based timeout that overrides the global timeout.
• Consolidates authorization checks to remove duplication.
• Moves more types into their backing modules in order to better consolidate files.

1.12.0

• Set's a non-conflicting WORKSPACE_DIR and DEFAULT_USER_DATA_DIR in docker by default.
• Drops support for puppeteer 1.15.0 and adds 1.19.0.
• Web-based debugger now sends cookies for docker deployments that are secure.

1.11.0

• Live debugger is now self-hosted, no more enforced https though it's still recommended.
• Consolidated build steps.
• Using the same chromedriver binary that matches the puppeteer's bundled chromium.
• Introducing trackingId workflows.
• Fixing unused export's, removing extraneous internal methods.
• /workspace API now returns sub-files and scopes sessions by trackingId when present.
• Support for /json/new protocol.
• Dependency updates.

1.10.0

• Dropped support for puppeteer 1.9.0 => 1.14.0.
• Added support for puppeteer 1.16.0 => 1.18.0.
• A version of chromedriver is now installed to perfectly match the version of puppeteer's chromium.
• In dev, chromedriver now uses the puppeteer version of chromium.
• Defaulted most ENV-variables in docker to sensible defaults.
• New rotate feature for PDF endpoint: { rotate: 90 } => rotate left 90 degrees.
• Support for browserless.token in the docker image.
• puppeteer integration now returns semantic HTTP codes for certain errors (400, 403 and 429).
• Support for chromedriver's move to the W3C spec 'goog:chromeOptions'.
• The debugger now filters out about:blank pages, and includes sessions by Selenium.
• Workspace support for selenium-based integrations.

1.9.0

• Better handling of browser/socket closing in puppeteer integrations.
• Numerous screencast fixes.
• Moved all GH links to new repo location.
• Dep updates.

1.8.0

• Better windows dev experience.
• Indian font support.
• Video capture now supports audio and browser width/height.
• Dependency updates.
• DEFAULT env variables for launching pre-booted Chrome.

1.7.0

• Dep updates
• New ?blockAds query-parameter for disabling 3rd-party ad calls.

1.6.0

• New authenticate and setExtraHTTPHeaders params for the content, pdf, and screenshot APIs. Useful for using proxies in our REST APIs.
• Fixed a bunch of bugs inside of the webdriver integration, making it more REST-ful.
• Updated dependencies inside of Chromedriver.
• New DISABLE_AUTO_SET_DOWNLOAD_BEHAVIOR for mitigating errors in puppeteer < 1.15.0.
• Bumped Puppeteer to 1.15.0.

1.5.0

• New /session API (and accompanying routes) for display/viewing active sesions in a remote debugger(!).
• New ?pause query-param for pausing sessions prior to running them (useful for the live debug viewer).
• The browserless debugger now exposes links to these debug pages via the sidebar.
• New Debugger page can be disabled via the ENABLE_DEBUG_VIEWER=false environment variable flag.
• Move to use node@10.
• No more no-implicit-any's inside the codebase.

1.4.0

• During connection, we now set the download dir of REST and puppeteer sessions. Cloud users and docker users no longer have to manually set this field, and the /workspace API references it as well!

1.3.1

Fixes

• New deploy.js file to do deployments "on-prem"
• Updated new builds for puppeteer 1.12.2 and 1.13.0
• Fixes an issues in CORS handling

1.3.0

Minor changes

• The screenshot, function, pdf, and content API's now accept new content-types for easier POSTing of small payloads (see docsite).
• The screencast API can now start/stop recording programmatically via a startScreencast and stopScreencast params (see docsite).
• New external dir for injecting custom before and after hooks in external docker builds.
• A new timeout query-option for session-based timeouts vs using the global one.
• New requestInterceptors for injection custom request behavior.

Fixes

• Numerous default fixes in the APIs.
• Stray consoles removed :)
• Consolidated download behavior in screencast and download APIs

1.2.0

Minor Changes

• New requestInterceptors for the /screenshot API, allowing you to mock data in response to a request.
• Code debugger now transmits code over-the-wire via cookies to avoid URL max-length issues.
• Now supports cookie-based authentication via a browserless_token=TOKEN; cookie.

Fixes

• Comments in the debugger won't break it.
• Requests that are rejected due to auth reasons aren't logged in stats.

1.1.0

With 1.1.0 we offer a refined way of dealing with both downloads and uploads. Both use-cases are tightly coupled to the file-system, and can leave you scratching your head as to what's going one. For more information and detailed documentation, please refer to our doc-site at https://www.browserless.io/

Minor Changes

• New WORKSPACE_DIR variable for controlling where browserless stores files and uploads.
• New /workspace API for doing RESTful operations on the downloads/uploads file-system.
• New /download API for running a puppeteer-script, and responding with the resulting downloaded file.

Internal Changes

• Moved routes out of the browserless module and into their own file/module.
• Renamed the browserless-web-service module to just browserless for simplicity.
• Moved the DOWNLOAD_DIR to WORKSPACE_DIR since it handles both uploads and downloads.

1.0.0

🥁 -- Stable version 1.0 is here! While this doesn't include major functionality changes, it does change how the docker builds are generated going forward. The versioning will now contain two pieces of crucial information: the version of the browserless service + the version of Chrome under-the-hood. For instance 1.2.3-puppeteer-1.10.0 is browserless at 1.2.3, exposing puppeteer at 1.10.0.

Similar to how NodeJS itself does docker releases, we'll now provide releases in 3 distinct ways:

• An immutable, pinned version release: 1.0.0-puppeteer-1.11.0
• A mutable minor version release: 1.1-puppeteer-1.12.0
• A mutable major version release: 1-puppeteer-1.9.0

For production deployments, we recommend using pinned version releases as they won't change once released. The mutable minor/major releases will receive on-going updates whenever we do changes that are bug-fixes or feature release. Even with the best intentions it's possible that instability can be introduced with these mutable images, hence why recommend the pinned version releases.

Finally, we'll continue to ship support for the last 5 minor versions of Puppeteer + the Google Chrome (stable). Old images will remain, but newer versions of browserless won't be included.

We'll continue to keep this changelog up-to-date anytime we do docker releases.