How do you block Google Analytics from Selenium automated visits?

Question

Basically, we have a javascript integration on client's webpages. We don't have much (or any) control of the deployed environment, hence the only way to test our integration is truly working is using browser automation on the client's webpage. We don't want to interfere with our tracking and analytics, and more importantly, the client's analytics (which is very important to verifying their ROI). What is the most convenient and effective way to block Google Analytics in the context of selenium browser automation?

I have found a few approaches:

1. Google Analytics Opt Out Browser Add On

2. Editing the hosts file to redirect Google Analytics to localhost (I'm not too happy about this solution since in the past it has broken some of our integration files)

3. Other browser specific extensions, Block yourself from GA extension for Chrome and Google Disconnect for Firefox.

Answer 1

Browsermob-proxy could be used to blacklist the GA hosts, so the code isn't even loaded.

https://github.com/lightbody/browsermob-proxy

It integrates well with Selenium.

Here is a general purpose talk describing using BMP to blacklist cruft that can slow down automation (Facebook & Twitter widgets are specifically mentioned, but I'm sure GA can also be blacklisted):

http://element34.ca/blog/proxy-executor

And here is a great guide for easily using browsermob-proxy with Selenium in C#. And the regex for blacklisting every request except the ga.js file (this way you can test GA are working and pages won't break that assume the file exists).

@"http://www\.google-analytics\.com/(?!ga\.js).*"

Answer 2

It's not very well documented, but you can also implement request blocking by passing the host-resolver-rules option to chrome and mapping the domain to localhost or an invalid IP. Something like this should work for you:

        ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions()
        options.addArguments("--host-resolver-rules=MAP www.google-analytics.com 127.0.0.1")
        def driverInstance = new ChromeDriver(options)

Answer 3

You should use the functionality of google analytics to exclude you IP addresses. This is covered in the online help here.

Answer 4

I found a pretty simple way to do it for Chrome and Firefox using the Google Analytics Opt out Add ons, which are maintained for basically all browser. Refering to this SO question about browser plugin testing with selenium, I was able to open a GA/free selenium session with the following code for C#

var options = new ChromeOptions();
options.Proxy = proxy;
options.AddExtension(Path.GetFullPath("chrome-ga-optout-extension.crx"));
var driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

and

var profile = new FirefoxProfile();
profile.AddExtension(Path.GetFullPath("firefox-ga-optou-addon.xpi"));
profile.SetProxyPreferences(proxy);
var driver = new FirefoxDriver(profile);

after copying the extension/addon to working directory. Google Chrome extension .crx files can be downloaded using the help of this SO post.

Unfortunately with this approach for IE, we are at the mercy of Selenium implementing add on support for IE Driver, which is probably a hopeless case.... If anyone can think of a solution for IE, that would be amazing.

Answer 5

You could simply just add the opt-out cookie to the browser. This answer may help.