What is Selenium? Getting started with Selenium Automation Testing

Selenium Automation Testing has turned out to be extremely prominent among analyzers in view of the different points of interest it offers.
When we talk about automation testing,the first thing that often comes to our mind is our favorite automation testing tool.
However,it won the hearts of many testers and developers with its simplicity,availability, and ease of use.With its advent on 2004, Selenium made the life of automation testers easier and is now a favorite tool for many automation testers.So,without further delay,let's get to know what is Selenium and how it helps in automation testing.
What is Selenium?
Selenium was invented with the introduction of a basic tool named as "JavaScripttestRunner",by Jason Huggins at ThoughtWorks to test their internal Time and Expenses application.Now it has gained popularity among software testers and developers as an open source portable automation testing framework.It has the capability to automate browsers with specific browser bindings for automating web applications for testing purposes.It is a suite of four tools designed for different purposes.Let's get to know about Selenium in detail and the different tool that it offers.
Selenium Suite of tools
It has 4 major components with a different approach for automation testing which is popular as the Selenium suite of tools.Every software tester or developer choose tools out of it depending upon the testing requirement for the organization.
Selenium RC (Remote Control)
Selenium Core was the first tool in Suite of tools.However, it was deprecated as it had some issues related to cross-domain testing because of same origin policy.So,to overcome that Selenium Remote Control (Selenium RC) Was introduces after Selenium core.RC turned out as an aid to the cross-domain issue.RC has an HTTP proxy server which helps in befooling the browser into believing that both the Selenium core and Web app which is being tested are from the same domain hence removing the cross-domain issue.
Selenium RC is separated into two sections which help in conquering the cross-area issue.
1)Selenium Remote Server
2)Selenium Remote Client
But the major issue with RC was time taken to execute a test.As Selenium server communicates using HTTP requests,it was more time-consuming.Because of this limitation RC also is now not much in use.
Selenium IDE
Selenium IDE,earlier known as Selenium recorder,is a tool used to record,edit,debug and replay functional tests.Selenium IDE is implemented as an extension to the Chrome browser and add-on in Firefox browser.With Selenium IDE plugin,you can record and export tests in any of the supported programming languages like Ruby,Java,PHP,Javascript etc.
Selenium Grid
selenium Grid is based on Hub-node architecture.With Selenium Grid,you can run parallel test sessions across different browsers.Hub controls Selenium scripts running on different nodes (specific browser inside on OS) and test scripts running on different nodes can be written in any programming language.
Selenium Grid was used with RC to test multiple tests on remote machines.Nowadays,as people find Webdriver better than RC,hence Grid works with both Webdriver and RC.
Selenium Webdriver
Selenium Webdriver is an enhanced version of Selenium Rc and the most tool.It accepts commands via client API and sends them to browsers.Simply put,Selenium Webdriver is a browser specific driver which helps in accessing and launching the different browsers.It provides an interface to write and run automation scripts.Every browser has different drivers to run tests.
*Mozilla Firefox uses Firefox Driver (Gecko Driver)
*Google Chrome uses Chrome Driver
*Internet Explorer uses Internet Explorer Driver
Opera uses Opera Driver
Safari uses Safari Driver and
HTM Unit Driver used to simulate browsers using headless browser HtmlUnit
Selenium Client API
It is the most recent device in the Suite of tools.With Selenium Client API you can compose test contents in different programming dialects as opposed to composing test contents in Selenese.Sellenium customer API is accessible for Java,JavaScript,C#,Ruby, and Python.These contents can speak with Selenium with predefined directions and elements of Client API.
Why Selenium for Automation Testing ?
Since we are now familier with Selenium and its suite of tools,let's find out the various benefits of Selenium which make it stand from the crowd as a tool for automation testing :
1)
Open Source Tool :
Since it is an open source tool,it does not require any licensing costs which give it an upper hand over other automation testing tools.

2)Tool for Every need :
As mentioned earlier,Selenium has a suite of tools,so it suits every need of the users.You can use various tools like WebDriver,Grid,IDE for fulfilling your different needs.
3)
Supports all major languages :
The major challenge that a tester or developer face with an automation testing tool is the support for languages.Since selenium supports all major languages like Java,Javascript,Python,Ruby,C,sharp,Perl, .Net and PHP, it is easier for testers to use.
4)
Browser and Operating System support :Selenium supports different browsers like chrome,Forefox,OPera,Internet Explorer,Edge and Safari and different operating systems like Windows,Linux,Mac.This makes it flexible to use.
5)
Community Support :
Selenium has an active open community which helps you solve your issues and queries related to it.This makes it the best choice as your automation testing tool.