In chromote: Headless Chrome Web Browser Interface

Chromote is an R implementation of the Chrome DevTools Protocol. It works with Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Vivaldi, and other browsers based on Chromium. By default it uses Google Chrome (which must already be installed on the system). To use a different browser, see vignette("which-chrome").

Chromote is not the only R package that implements the Chrome DevTools Protocol. Here are some others:

• crrri by Romain Lesur and Christophe Dervieux
• decapitated by Bob Rudis
• chradle by Miles McBain

The interface to Chromote is similar to chrome-remote-interface for node.js.

Features

• Install and use specific versions of Chrome from the Chrome for Testing service.

• Offers a synchronous API for ease of use and an asynchronous API for more sophisticated tasks.

• Full support for the Chrome DevTools Protocol for any version of Chrome or any Chrome-based browser.

• Includes convenience methods, like $screenshot() and $set_viewport_size(), for common tasks.

• Automatically reconnects to previous sessions if the connection from R to Chrome is lost, for example when restarting from sleep state.

• Powers many higher-level packages and functions, like {shinytest2} and rvest::read_html_live().

chromote documentation built on April 4, 2025, 1:43 a.m.