4 ms·

This is just my opinion, but I can see PhantomJS lose a lot of its appeal when the --headless switch for Google Chrome hits the stable channel (quite a way off

by heipei 10y ago

This is just my opinion, but I can see PhantomJS lose a lot of its appeal when the --headless switch for Google Chrome hits the stable channel (quite a way off still, sure). This was already discussed to some extent here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839303. Add a couple of porcelain libraries on top of chrome-remote-interface, and you have an even more powerful instrumented headless browser, plus you don't need to worry about security, performance and keeping up with crazy new web features. Also, Chrome headless will encompass features aimed at automation/CI like: - "Virtual" time (fast-forward time) - Session isolation (even for same origin) - Full page screenshots out of the box Slides for Chrome headless: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gqK9F4lGAY3TZudAtdcxzMQNEE7PcuQrGu83No3l0lw/edit#slide=id.g13338d98ec_0_25 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gqK9F4lGAY3TZudAtdcx... Shameless plug: I'm using Google Chrome to drive https://urlscan.io https://urlscan.io and will make the switch to the headless version once it's included in the Beta channel.

jotto 10y ago
shameless plug: I'm already using headless Chrome for https://www.prerender.cloud/ https://www.prerender.cloud/ and it's amazing (just building it from source https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a9cdsljKxCSreR2LDE3KErJhfyC0N9y5ju2UYZb8-J4/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a9cdsljKxCSreR2LDE3KErJh...)
- kinlan 10y ago
  Shameless plug: I've been using it to get Chrome on Google home - https://paul.kinlan.me/chrome-on-home/ https://paul.kinlan.me/chrome-on-home/ (Disclosure: I'm a developer advocate for chrome so I'm heavily biased, but I love everything people are doing g with browsers on the server https://paul.kinlan.me/the-headless-web/ https://paul.kinlan.me/the-headless-web/ )
  - nathancahill 10y ago
    Super cool. I understand that you're biased, but this would have been easy to do with Readability.js from Mozilla :) I wrote something similar to serve low-bandwidth (pre-readabilitied pages) to my parents low-bandwidth internet over a MITM proxy.
    - kinlan 10y ago
      I had different plans before I started :) given my time again playing on the project I would use Readability.js :) was also looking at DOMDistiller.
stevebmark 10y ago
I always disliked working with Phantom. Slow, buggy, crashy, limiting and weird subset of Javascript support with an awful ecosystem of hacks trying to get it usable in Node. I can't wait until a more stable tool superceeds it.
- zlagen 10y ago
  Casperjs, which runs on top of PhantomJS has been nicer to use for me. Also Nightmare(http://www.nightmarejs.org/ http://www.nightmarejs.org/). The problem I always had with PhantomJS is that it's more difficult than it should be to automatize very simple website interactions. In Nightmare's homepage you can see a comparison between a script made in PhantomJS and one in Nightmare.
  - btrask 10y ago
    These abstractions are building on top of sand.
    - jazoom 10y ago
      Electron isn't sand.
  - fake-name 10y ago
    NightmareJS isn't headless, which is a dealbreaker for me. I'm automating in environments that don't have X.
    - jazoom 10y ago
      Yeah, that's the problem with Nightmare. It's great otherwise.
      - beobab 10y ago
        Witty comment about it being a Nightmare.
gowan 10y ago
i built chromium headless_shell for ubuntu 16 in the last 3 months to compare it to my phantomjs 2.1.1 build (cookie patch and ghostdriver selenium 2.53 patch). i was disappointed in what chromium headless_shell had to offer. good: slightly faster on javascript heavy pages, full dowload and upload support, selenium support for alerts/popups bad: slower startup, slower average performance, no mobile support, no screenshot support, takes at least 2x cpu and memory compared to phantomjs for me phantomjs/ghostdriver is faster than chromedriver. plus chromedriver has an annoying click "feature"[1] that can break selenium tests. [1] https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/help/clicking-issues https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/help/cl...
- hackcasual 10y ago
  Screenshot support is done through the chrome remote debug API. https://chromedevtools.github.io/debugger-protocol-viewer/tot/Page/#method-captureScreenshot https://chromedevtools.github.io/debugger-protocol-viewer/to...
fake-name 10y ago
Headless chromium is reasonably stable now. I'm working on a wrapper to completely expose the chrome remote debug interface in python [here](https://github.com/fake-name/ChromeController https://github.com/fake-name/ChromeController), if you're interested. In doing so, I've found (and reported) several bugs in the remote interface documentation as well. It's a fun project. I hope to eventually completely replace phantomjs in my automated scraping project with headless chromium, but there's still some [strange issues](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=672744 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=672744).
Sivart13 10y ago
I agree, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. PhantomJS works well enough, 2.5 will hopefully work better. `--headless` will be even better than that, but it isn't here yet.

by heipei 10y ago

jotto 10y ago

shameless plug: I'm already using headless Chrome for https://www.prerender.cloud/ https://www.prerender.cloud/ and it's amazing (just building it from source https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a9cdsljKxCSreR2LDE3KErJhfyC0N9y5ju2UYZb8-J4/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a9cdsljKxCSreR2LDE3KErJh...)

kinlan 10y ago
Shameless plug: I've been using it to get Chrome on Google home - https://paul.kinlan.me/chrome-on-home/ https://paul.kinlan.me/chrome-on-home/ (Disclosure: I'm a developer advocate for chrome so I'm heavily biased, but I love everything people are doing g with browsers on the server https://paul.kinlan.me/the-headless-web/ https://paul.kinlan.me/the-headless-web/ )
- nathancahill 10y ago
  Super cool. I understand that you're biased, but this would have been easy to do with Readability.js from Mozilla :) I wrote something similar to serve low-bandwidth (pre-readabilitied pages) to my parents low-bandwidth internet over a MITM proxy.
  - kinlan 10y ago
    I had different plans before I started :) given my time again playing on the project I would use Readability.js :) was also looking at DOMDistiller.

stevebmark 10y ago

I always disliked working with Phantom. Slow, buggy, crashy, limiting and weird subset of Javascript support with an awful ecosystem of hacks trying to get it usable in Node. I can't wait until a more stable tool superceeds it.

zlagen 10y ago
Casperjs, which runs on top of PhantomJS has been nicer to use for me. Also Nightmare(http://www.nightmarejs.org/ http://www.nightmarejs.org/). The problem I always had with PhantomJS is that it's more difficult than it should be to automatize very simple website interactions. In Nightmare's homepage you can see a comparison between a script made in PhantomJS and one in Nightmare.
- btrask 10y ago
  These abstractions are building on top of sand.
  - jazoom 10y ago
    Electron isn't sand.
- fake-name 10y ago
  NightmareJS isn't headless, which is a dealbreaker for me. I'm automating in environments that don't have X.
  - jazoom 10y ago
    Yeah, that's the problem with Nightmare. It's great otherwise.
    - beobab 10y ago
      Witty comment about it being a Nightmare.

gowan 10y ago

i built chromium headless_shell for ubuntu 16 in the last 3 months to compare it to my phantomjs 2.1.1 build (cookie patch and ghostdriver selenium 2.53 patch). i was disappointed in what chromium headless_shell had to offer. good: slightly faster on javascript heavy pages, full dowload and upload support, selenium support for alerts/popups bad: slower startup, slower average performance, no mobile support, no screenshot support, takes at least 2x cpu and memory compared to phantomjs for me phantomjs/ghostdriver is faster than chromedriver. plus chromedriver has an annoying click "feature"[1] that can break selenium tests. [1] https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/help/clicking-issues https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/help/cl...

hackcasual 10y ago
Screenshot support is done through the chrome remote debug API. https://chromedevtools.github.io/debugger-protocol-viewer/tot/Page/#method-captureScreenshot https://chromedevtools.github.io/debugger-protocol-viewer/to...

fake-name 10y ago

Headless chromium is reasonably stable now. I'm working on a wrapper to completely expose the chrome remote debug interface in python [here](https://github.com/fake-name/ChromeController https://github.com/fake-name/ChromeController), if you're interested. In doing so, I've found (and reported) several bugs in the remote interface documentation as well. It's a fun project. I hope to eventually completely replace phantomjs in my automated scraping project with headless chromium, but there's still some [strange issues](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=672744 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=672744).

Sivart13 10y ago

I agree, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. PhantomJS works well enough, 2.5 will hopefully work better. `--headless` will be even better than that, but it isn't here yet.