Getting Started with Puppeteer JS: A Comprehensive Guide

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Introduction

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Puppeteer is a powerful Node.js library that allows you to control headless versions of Chrome and Chromium browsers. In this article, we'll walk through the process of downloading and setting up puppeteer js for free.

Why Choose Puppeteer?

-------------------

1. Fast Page Rendering: With its high-performance rendering engine based on Blink (the same as Google's Chromium), puppeteer js can load pages faster than other similar libraries.

2. Robust API: Its comprehensive API provides an easy-to-use interface for automating browser actions, making it ideal for both beginners and experienced developers alike!

3. Cross-Platform Compatibility: Puppeteer supports Windows, macOS (including M1 Macs), Linux distributions like Ubuntu 16+.

Prerequisites

----------

Before you begin:

- Ensure Node.js is installed on your system (>= v14).

- You'll also need a compatible version of npm or yarn as package managers.

- For puppeteer-core specifically, make sure to install Node >=v10.13.0 and npm >==6.4.1.

Step-by-Step Installation Guide

------------------------------

### Option 1: Using `npm`

1. Open your terminal/bash prompt in the directory where you want to create a new project.

2. Run the following command to download puppeteer:

```bash

npm i -g @puppeteer/puppeteer

```

### Option 2: Using `yarn`

1. If you haven't already, install yarn by running:

```bash

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yarnpkg/\

yarn.git/releases/latest/bin/yarn --silent \

&& \# Then run this line to make it globally executable.

# OR -p '$0 = require('fs').readFileSync(0, 'utf8'); \

# require('./yarn.js')().main();' < \

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yarnpkg/\

yarn.git/releases/latest/bin/yarn && \# Then run this line

rm /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm.client -rf 2>/dev/null || true;

```

2. Create a new directory for your project and navigate into it.

```bash

mkdir my-puppeteer-project

cd my-puppeteer-project/

```

3. Install puppeteer using yarn:

```bash

yarn add @puppeteer/puppeteer@1.x.y # replace 'x' with desired version number(s)

```

4. If you want to use a specific browser instead of the default (chromium), you can specify it during installation like so:

```sh

npm i -g puppeteer --browser=chrome

```

Getting Started with Puppeteer Core

--------------------------------

Puppeteer provides two main packages: `puppeteer` and `puppeteer-core`. The latter doesn't download any browser by default, making it ideal for use cases where you already have a Chromium or Chrome instance running.

To install puppeteer core instead of the full version:

```bash

npm i -g @puppeteer/puppeteer-core@1.x.y # replace 'x' with desired version number(s)

```

Basic Usage Examples

----------------

### Example 1: Basic Puppeteering

Here's a basic example that opens up a new browser instance and navigates to Google.com:

```javascript

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

(async () => {

const browser = await puppeteer.launch();

const page = await browser.newPage();

// Navigate to https://www.google.com/

await page.goto('https://www.example.com');

// Wait for the title element

await page.waitForSelector('title');

console.log(await page.title());

// Close everything down!

await browser.close();

})();

```

### Example 2: Puppeteering with Headless Mode

Here's how you can launch a headless browser instance:

```javascript

const puppeteer = require('p conclusion

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In this article, we've covered the process of downloading and setting up puppeteer js for free. We also touched on some basic usage examples to get started quickly.

Remember that if any issues arise during installation or while using Puppeteer in your project, make sure you're running Node.js >=14 (for latest versions). You can always refer back to this guide whenever needed!

Puppeteer js download free