Unable to install Selenium IDE in Chrome

48 views
Skip to first unread message

David K

unread,
Apr 20, 2026, 6:07:20 AM (12 days ago) Apr 20
to Selenium Users
Apologies if this question has already been answered, but I couldn't find anything that seemed relevant.

When I tried to install the Selenium IDE plugin in Chrome, I received the following error message from the Chrome Web Store:

"This extension is no longer available because it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions."

I'm using Chrome Version 147.0.7727.56 (Official Build) (64-bit) under Windows 11 Home edition.

Has anyone else had this problem? What "best practices" doesn't it follow?

I was able to install the IDE in Firefox, but I prefer to use Chrome.

Thanks.

David K

unread,
Apr 20, 2026, 6:12:36 AM (12 days ago) Apr 20
to Selenium Users
P.S. If it's no longer available for Chrome, why is there still a download button on the Selenium website? Do the developers plan to fix the issue, or has it been abandoned?

justin...@hotmail.co.uk

unread,
Apr 20, 2026, 8:09:31 AM (12 days ago) Apr 20
to Selenium Users
I don't think Selenium IDE is being maintained anymore.


Unless something has changed it won't work - or rather some commands won't work in Firefox .

I would find another browser test runner, or simply make the switch to Selenium.


David K

unread,
Apr 20, 2026, 9:11:08 AM (12 days ago) Apr 20
to Selenium Users
Okay, so why is the link still on their web site? And what do you mean by "switch to Selenium"? I thought I was already using Selenium. 

I'm new to this, so I'm a little confused about all the different components (Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE, Selenium Grid). I managed to install the plugin for Firefox, created a project and recorded a test. I also installed the Selenium library for Python and ran the test in Python, after a bit of editing. If I have to record the tests in Firefox, that's okay, although as I said I'd prefer to use Chrome.

Thanks.

justin...@hotmail.co.uk

unread,
Apr 20, 2026, 1:31:30 PM (12 days ago) Apr 20
to Selenium Users
Selenium IDE is a browser based test runner available for FF. It is no longer maintained. Some commands such as 'type' used for entering text into an input field no longer work as the browser API methods they call have been deprecated.

Selenium, totally different is the backend code based solution which uses the WebDriver you mention to 'drive' a browser, including Chrome, which can be on a remote server. Tests are written in Python, Node etc.

When we discovered that Selenium IDE was no longer maintained we decided to use Selenium instead and we rewrote our tests in Python. 'switched'.

The GitHub link I posted as more details, including about how the Selenium IDE website may not itself be being maintained 

Hth

David K

unread,
Apr 20, 2026, 2:16:37 PM (12 days ago) Apr 20
to Selenium Users
So the Selenium website (https://www.selenium.dev/) and the people who maintain it aren't affiliated with the GitHub respository (https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium)? Who "owns" the name "Selenium"?

I took a quick look at the respository and it seems like overkill for my needs. Am I correct in thinking that even if the Selenium IDE (from  https://www.selenium.dev/) is no longer maintained and won't install in Chrome (although it did install in Firefox, and seems to work), Selenium WebDriver (from  https://www.selenium.dev/) is still being maintained? Is there some other browser plugin that I could use instead of Selenium IDE to record scripts? 

As I said, I'm just learning how to use Selenium (in the generic sense). I was using BeautifulSoup and Scrapy to do some web scraping, but I need to script some interactions like clicking on a button to download a file, so I thought I'd try Selenium. But my requirements are pretty simple, so I'd like to avoid installing anything too complicated. So far, my approach seems to be working (I'm able to download the file I'm interested in). I am having a few issues getting some other things to work, but that's probably due to my lack of experience rather than any issues with Selenium WebDriver or the Selenium IDE plugin for Firefox.

Thanks again.

Corey Goldberg

unread,
Apr 20, 2026, 2:28:16 PM (12 days ago) Apr 20
to seleniu...@googlegroups.com
The website and GitHub repository are maintained by the same people.

Selenium IDE is effectively dead and unmaintained. The website just has not been updated to reflect that. The browser plugin might still work with older versions of Chrome and some functionality might work with Firefox, but you are on your own if you run into issues.

There are other 3rd party recorders you can try, but none are maintained by the Selenium project.

Most people just write code for Selenium WebDriver and don't rely on browser recording.



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Selenium Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to selenium-user...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/selenium-users/97784543-443c-4147-98a2-44692223d65bn%40googlegroups.com.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages