Skip to content

Conversation

Mantisus
Copy link
Collaborator

@Mantisus Mantisus commented Oct 15, 2025

Description

  • add chrome BrowserType for PlaywrightCrawler to use the Chrome browser

Issues

@Mantisus Mantisus self-assigned this Oct 15, 2025
@Mantisus Mantisus requested review from Pijukatel and vdusek October 15, 2025 07:57
ValueError, match=r'Cannot use `use_chrome` with `Configuration.default_browser_path` or `executable_path` set.'
):
PlaywrightBrowserPlugin(
browser_type='chromium',
Copy link
Collaborator

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

To me, this seems a little strange from the user perspective. It is defining one type of browser in one argument and then overriding it in another argument, which is valid only for a specific value of the first argument. I would prefer to just add browser_type=chrome and connect any logic to such a specific browser_type internally.

Copy link
Collaborator Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Since browser_type in Crawlee is a parameter that directly corresponds to a similar parameter in Playwright, I think adding a new option to it will confuse users familiar with Playwright.

Copy link
Collaborator

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I think that users familiar with Playwright are probably OK with the current state of defining channel in browser_launch_options - as that is the Playwright way of using Chrome and offers the best flexibility without us needing to change anything.

Experienced Playwright users aside, when considering anyone else, I think it is not a very intuitive way to select Chrome with this change.

Just consider the following snippets:

To use Firefox:
PlaywrightCrawler(browser_type="firefox")

But to use Chrome
PlaywrightCrawler(browser_type="chromium", use_chrome=True)

I think that most users would expect just this instead:
PlaywrightCrawler(browser_type="chrome")

Anyway, I do not have a very strong opinion about this, but I would suggest introducing new arguments only if we see big improvements in readability, which I do not think is the case now.

Copy link
Collaborator Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Maybe @vdusek, @janbuchar have some ideas about which approach would be best to choose?

Copy link
Collaborator

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I agree with @Pijukatel

Copy link
Collaborator Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Updated

@Mantisus Mantisus marked this pull request as draft October 17, 2025 12:25
@Mantisus Mantisus marked this pull request as ready for review October 17, 2025 14:27
@Mantisus Mantisus requested a review from Pijukatel October 17, 2025 14:27
@Mantisus Mantisus changed the title feat: add use_chrome to use the Chrome browser feat: add chrome BrowserType for PlaywrightCrawler to use the Chrome browser Oct 17, 2025
Copy link
Collaborator

@vdusek vdusek left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

A few comments

@Mantisus Mantisus requested a review from vdusek October 20, 2025 22:31
Copy link
Collaborator

@vdusek vdusek left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

LGTM

We have quite a lot of "fix" open PRs, so let's wait for them at first, and release one more patch release. This will be part of v1.1, together with Redis.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

Add chrome option for PlaywrightCrawler

3 participants