Playwright Bot Bypass

Bypass bot detection systems using rebrowser-playwright with stealth techniques. This approach successfully passes bot detection tests like bot.sannysoft.com and enables automation on sites with aggressive bot protection (Google, Cloudflare, etc.).

Why Standard Playwright Gets Detected

Standard Playwright/Puppeteer exposes several automation signatures:

Quick Start

1. Install Dependencies

npm install rebrowser-playwright

2. Basic Stealth Script

import { chromium } from 'rebrowser-playwright';

const browser = await chromium.launch({
  headless: false,
  channel: 'chrome'  // Use real Chrome browser
});

const context = await browser.newContext();

// Remove WebDriver property
await context.addInitScript(() => {
  delete Object.getPrototypeOf(navigator).webdriver;
});

const page = await context.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');

Key Components

rebrowser-playwright

Drop-in replacement for playwright that patches automation detection:

• Uses real GPU instead of SwiftShader
• Removes HeadlessChrome from User Agent
• Patches various fingerprinting vectors

addInitScript for WebDriver

The navigator.webdriver property is the most common detection method:

await context.addInitScript(() => {
  delete Object.getPrototypeOf(navigator).webdriver;
});

Real Chrome Browser

Always use channel: 'chrome' to launch the user's installed Chrome:

chromium.launch({
  headless: false,
  channel: 'chrome'
});

Complete Example

See examples/stealth-google-search.mjs for a complete working example that:

1. Bypasses bot detection
2. Performs Google search
3. Captures results

Testing Bot Detection

Verify bypass effectiveness at https://bot.sannysoft.com:

node scripts/bot-detection-test.mjs

All items should show green (passed).

Scripts

• scripts/bot-detection-test.mjs - Test bot detection status
• scripts/stealth-template.mjs - Reusable stealth browser template

Examples

• examples/stealth-google-search.mjs - Google search without CAPTCHA
• examples/ab-test.mjs - Compare detected vs stealth side-by-side
• examples/stealth-twitter-scrape.mjs - Twitter/X profile scraping without login

Limitations

• Requires headless: false (headed mode)
• Needs real Chrome installed (channel: 'chrome')
• Some sites may still detect based on behavior patterns
• Does not bypass CAPTCHAs, only prevents triggering them

Python Support

playwright-stealth (Limited)

Python playwright-stealth cannot fully bypass bot detection.

Why?

• rebrowser-playwright: Chromium binary-level patch → uses real GPU
• playwright-stealth: JavaScript-level patch only → SwiftShader exposed

undetected-chromedriver (Recommended for Python)

undetected-chromedriver fully bypasses bot detection in Python!

Installation

pip install undetected-chromedriver

Usage

import undetected_chromedriver as uc

# Check your Chrome version at chrome://version
driver = uc.Chrome(version_main=133)

driver.get("https://www.google.com")
search_box = driver.find_element("name", "q")
search_box.send_keys("your search query")
search_box.submit()

Key Points

• Uses Selenium WebDriver API (not Playwright)
• Automatically patches ChromeDriver to avoid detection
• Requires specifying version_main matching your Chrome version
• Check Chrome version: chrome://version

Alternative: Subprocess

For Electron/Node.js apps, call Node.js script from Python:

import subprocess
result = subprocess.run(['node', 'stealth-script.mjs', query], capture_output=True)

Troubleshooting

Still Getting Detected?

1. Ensure using rebrowser-playwright, not playwright
2. Verify channel: 'chrome' is set
3. Check addInitScript runs before navigation
4. Try adding delays between actions (human-like behavior)

Browser Not Opening?

# macOS
/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --version

# Windows
"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --version

# Linux
google-chrome --version

WebGL Still Shows SwiftShader?

This happens with regular playwright. Confirm import is from rebrowser-playwright:

// Correct
import { chromium } from 'rebrowser-playwright';

// Wrong - will be detected
import { chromium } from 'playwright';