What’s Coming in Selenium 4: Why The Major Version Bump?

The upcoming release of Selenium 4 has a major version bump due to the implementation of a revised Selenium IDE as a web component, allowing it to be used with multiple browsers, including Chrome and Firefox. The project also fully adopted the W3C WebDriver protocol, replacing its original home-grown wire protocol with improved consistency and API for specifying user actions. This change is expected to provide a stable user-facing API, enabling seamless upgrades from Selenium 3, although some deprecated methods may be removed. The adoption of the W3C protocol is particularly relevant for companies providing Selenium as a service, such as Sauce Labs, who have ensured compliance with the standard. With this release, developers can expect new features and improvements in the upcoming posts in the series.