[FIXED] How can we use Selenium Webdriver in colab.research.google.com?

Issue

I want to use Selenium Webdriver of Chrome in colab.research.google.com for fast processing. I was able to install Selenium using !pip install selenium but the webdriver of chrome needs a path to webdriverChrome.exe. How am I suppose to use it?

P.S.- colab.research.google.com is an online platform which provides GPU for fast computational problems related to deep learning. Please refrain from solutions such as webdriver.Chrome(path).

Solution

Recently Google collab was upgraded and since Ubuntu 20.04+ no longer distributes chromium-browser outside of a snap package, you can install a compatible version from the Debian buster repository:

%%shell
# Ubuntu no longer distributes chromium-browser outside of snap
#
# Proposed solution: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1204571/how-to-install-chromium-without-snap

# Add debian buster
cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list <<'EOF'
deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster.gpg] http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main
deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster-updates.gpg] http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main
deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-security-buster.gpg] http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main
EOF

# Add keys
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys DCC9EFBF77E11517
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 648ACFD622F3D138
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 112695A0E562B32A

apt-key export 77E11517 | gpg --dearmour -o /usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster.gpg
apt-key export 22F3D138 | gpg --dearmour -o /usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster-updates.gpg
apt-key export E562B32A | gpg --dearmour -o /usr/share/keyrings/debian-security-buster.gpg

# Prefer debian repo for chromium* packages only
# Note the double-blank lines between entries
cat > /etc/apt/preferences.d/chromium.pref << 'EOF'
Package: *
Pin: release a=eoan
Pin-Priority: 500


Package: *
Pin: origin "deb.debian.org"
Pin-Priority: 300


Package: chromium*
Pin: origin "deb.debian.org"
Pin-Priority: 700
EOF

# Install chromium and chromium-driver
apt-get update
apt-get install chromium chromium-driver

# Install selenium
pip install selenium

Then you can run selenium like this:

from selenium import webdriver
chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
chrome_options.add_argument('--headless')
chrome_options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')
chrome_options.headless = True
wd = webdriver.Chrome('chromedriver',options=chrome_options)
wd.get("https://www.webite-url.com")

Answered By - Thomas