Playwright Stealth

Warnings

• breaking The API for `playwright-stealth` underwent a breaking change from v1.x to v2.x. Older patterns like `stealth_async(page)` or `stealth_sync(page)` are no longer supported. The current recommended approach uses a `Stealth().use_async(async_playwright())` context manager or `stealth.apply_stealth_async(context)` method for explicit control.
  Fix: Migrate your code to use the `Stealth` class with its context manager (`async with Stealth().use_async(async_playwright())`) or `apply_stealth_async(context)` method.
• gotcha While `playwright-stealth` helps bypass many common bot detection methods by patching browser fingerprints (e.g., `navigator.webdriver`, User-Agent), it does not provide complete immunity against advanced anti-bot systems. These systems might analyze IP reputation, TLS fingerprints, behavioral patterns, and other infrastructure-level signals, which `playwright-stealth` does not address.
  Fix: For highly protected websites, consider combining `playwright-stealth` with proxy rotation (especially residential proxies), realistic user behavior simulation (random delays, mouse movements), and session management.
• gotcha The `playwright` library (on which `playwright-stealth` depends) no longer automatically downloads browser binaries (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit) when installed via `pip` since version 1.38+. If you forget to install the browsers, `playwright-stealth` will fail to launch a browser.
  Fix: After installing `playwright-stealth`, run `playwright install` (or `playwright install chromium` for a specific browser) in your environment to download the necessary browser binaries.
• gotcha Stealth techniques that work for small-scale testing often fail when scaled up. Consistent browser fingerprints, repeated access patterns from the same IP, and rapid requests can lead to detection and blocking by anti-bot services, even with stealth plugins.
  Fix: Implement robust infrastructure-level solutions for scaling, such as distributed proxies, diverse user-agent rotation, dynamic header management, and careful pacing of requests to mimic human browsing more closely.

Install

• pip install playwright-stealth Install package
• playwright install chromium Install Playwright browser binaries (required)

Imports

• Stealth

  from playwright_stealth import Stealth

• stealth_async / stealth_sync
  These functions were part of the v1.x API and are deprecated. The v2.x API uses a context manager approach.

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates the recommended asynchronous usage of `playwright-stealth` with Playwright's context manager. It launches a stealthy Chromium browser, checks the `navigator.webdriver` property (which should be `False` or undefined when stealth is applied), and navigates to a sample page. Remember to install Playwright browser binaries via `playwright install chromium` first.

import asyncio
import os
from playwright.async_api import async_playwright
from playwright_stealth import Stealth

async def main():
    async with Stealth().use_async(async_playwright()) as p:
        browser = await p.chromium.launch(headless=True)
        page = await browser.new_page()
        
        # Example: Go to a test page and check navigator.webdriver property
        # An actual stealth check would involve visiting sannysoft.com or similar
        await page.goto("https://www.google.com")
        is_webdriver = await page.evaluate("navigator.webdriver")
        print(f"Is navigator.webdriver set? {is_webdriver}")

        # Navigate to another page
        await page.goto("https://web-scraping.dev/products")
        title = await page.title()
        print(f"Page title: {title}")
        
        await browser.close()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())