Media Session Controls

[benfrankie]

Hi Michael,

What’s the recommended way in SeleniumBase to launch Chrome with flags that disable Media Session / Global Media Controls and background throttling (so OS ‘playing in background’ overlays don’t appear)?

When using uc=True, which WebDriver fingerprints does SeleniumBase mask for Y0UTube (e.g., navigator.webdriver, chrome.runtime hooks), and are there any additional SB options you recommend for running multiple headed instances reliably?

Is there a built-in way in SeleniumBase to keep a window focused (bring to front) while running steps, or should I call bring_to_front()/window focus APIs manually?

Thank you for your help!

[mdmintz]

If there's a chromium arg for media session controls, then include it with chromium_arg. (I haven't memorized all possible options.)

All fingerprints are masked in CDP Mode. (The browser looks like a regular human-controlled browser to websites.) However, if using Docker, that's a problem because there are hardcoded fingerprints that make your bot easily detectable. (There no known workaround for Docker stealth.)

You can call sb.cdp.bring_to_front() to bring the active browser window to the front. Some methods will call this automatically.

[benfrankie]

In CDP mode, beyond hiding navigator.webdriver, does SB change signals that Y‎​​​T commonly check (e.g., Permissions/Visibility API behavior, autoplay/gesture gating, WebRTC IP leak, Media Session, timing jitter, input events), or does it only mask WebDriver-specific fingerprints?

Is there any known issue when running 10–30 headed Chrome instances concurrently on the same host with SB (uc=True, cdp=True) e.g., stability, shared resources, or patterns that could make Y​​​T flag sessions as automated?

What’s the recommended SB pattern for per-instance isolation (unique user-data-dir, proxy, timezone/locale) so that each browser looks like a distinct, human-used profile across runs? Any built-in helpers, or should we set args/extensions manually?

Thank you for your help!

[mdmintz]

It just spins up a regular browser like a human would, unlike usual selenium, which changes settings, fingerprints, and adds special console variables.

Spinning up that many browsers is sure to generate a lot more traffic than a single user would generate on a site, so if the site / anti-bot is looking for that, it could detect you.

There are ways of changing fingerprints, eg timezone and geolocation, but the real identifier would be the IP address, and you would need to connect to a proxy server via the proxy arg in order to change that. You could also change the user agent (the default one is best though), and you could even mess around with the user_data_dir, but the real identifier is still the IP Address. Too much traffic from one, and they could detect you.