How does Playwright manage and track browser dependencies and how can it be configured to download browsers from custom locations?

Answer

Sure, let's dive into how Playwright manages browser dependencies and how you can configure it to download browsers from custom locations.

Managing Browser Dependencies

Playwright keeps track of the packages that need browsers and cleans them up as you update to newer versions. You can opt-in for this mode by adding the following line to your .bashrc:

export PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH=$HOME/pw-browsers

This tells Playwright to manage and track browser dependencies based on the packages you're using.

Downloading Browsers from Custom Locations

By default, Playwright downloads browsers from Microsoft's CDN. But if your company maintains an internal artifact repository to host browser binaries, you can configure Playwright to download from your custom location. Just set the PLAYWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_HOST environment variable:

export PLAYWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_HOST=https://ray.run/your-custom-location

If your company uses an internal proxy that blocks direct access to public resources, you can configure Playwright to download browsers via a proxy server. Set the HTTPS_PROXY environment variable:

export HTTPS_PROXY=https://ray.run/your-proxy-server

That's it! Now you know how to manage browser dependencies and configure Playwright to download browsers from custom locations. For more tips and tricks, check out our blog.