Opening Chromium from Node.js without Puppeteer's core features

Other Questions Puppeteer
1

Hey everyone! I’m trying to figure out how to start up the Chromium browser that comes with Puppeteer, but without using any of Puppeteer’s fancy features. I know it’s installed in the node_modules folder, but I’m not sure how to run it on its own.

I’ve been digging through the docs, thinking there might be some kind of option when calling the launch function, but no luck so far. It would be super helpful if someone could point me in the right direction or even share some basic code to get Chromium running.

The main goal here is to bypass Puppeteer completely and just fire up the browser. Has anyone done this before? Any tips or tricks would be much appreciated!

Here’s a simple example of what I’m trying to do:

const startBrowser = async () => {
  // Some magic code to launch Chromium directly
  const browser = await magicLaunchMethod();
  console.log('Browser started!');
  // Do stuff with the browser
};

startBrowser();

Thanks in advance for any help!

2

I’ve actually tackled this issue before in a project where we needed to launch Chromium without Puppeteer’s overhead. Here’s what worked for me:

Using Node’s child_process module is the way to go. You can locate Chromium’s executable path through Puppeteer, then use exec to launch it. Something like this:

const { exec } = require('child_process');
const chromePath = require('puppeteer').executablePath();

function launchChromium() {
  exec(`"${chromePath}" --no-sandbox`, (err, stdout, stderr) => {
    if (err) {
      console.error('Failed to start Chromium:', err);
      return;
    }
    console.log('Chromium launched successfully');
  });
}

launchChromium();

This approach gives you more control over the browser instance. You can add extra command-line flags to customize the launch process. Just be cautious with security implications when using --no-sandbox.

Remember, without Puppeteer you’ll need to handle process management yourself. Make sure to properly close the browser when you’re done to avoid leaving orphaned processes.

3

hey, have you tried using the chrome-launcher package? it’s pretty neat for starting chromium without all the puppeteer stuff. just npm install it and do something like:

const launcher = require(‘chrome-launcher’);
launcher.launch({startingUrl: ‘google.com’}).then(chrome => {
console.log(Chrome running on port ${chrome.port});
});

works like a charm for me!

4

I’ve experimented with this scenario before, and here’s a technique that worked well for me:

Instead of relying on Puppeteer, you can use the ‘chrome-launcher’ package. It’s specifically designed for launching Chrome/Chromium instances programmatically. Here’s a basic example:

const chromeLauncher = require('chrome-launcher');

async function launchChromium() {
  const chrome = await chromeLauncher.launch({
    startingUrl: 'https://www.example.com',
    chromeFlags: ['--disable-extensions']
  });
  
  console.log(`Chrome debugging port running on ${chrome.port}`);
}

launchChromium();

This approach gives you more flexibility and control over the browser instance without Puppeteer’s overhead. You can customize various launch options and flags to suit your needs. Remember to npm install chrome-launcher first.

One advantage of this method is that it handles finding the Chrome executable for you across different platforms. It also provides methods for killing the browser process when you’re done.