A few of my tests require access to modify the HTTP Request headers. Unfortunately, Selenium hides access to them to allow for portability, and to better emulate what “users” generally can change. To work around this a Firefox extension can be used and configured at runtime for this purpose.
NOTE: for Maven, you need to place a copy of the .xpi file referenced into the /
src/test/resourcesfolder for Selenium to locate it.
In the example below, I’m setting the HTTP Header for “DNT” to “1”.
public FirefoxDriver createFirefoxDriver() throws URISyntaxException, IOException {
// Specify the install location (if not default)
System.setProperty("webdriver.firefox.bin","C:\\path\\to\\Firefox.exe");
// Prevent Console log "noise" from the Selenium Firefox plugin
System.setProperty("org.apache.commons.logging.Log", "org.apache.commons.logging.impl.SimpleLog");
System.setProperty("org.apache.commons.logging.simplelog.log.httpclient.wire", "OFF");
System.setProperty("org.apache.commons.logging.simplelog.log.org.apache.commons.httpclient", "OFF");
final FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();
final URL url = this.getClass().getResource("/modify_headers-0.7.1.1-fx.xpi");
final File modifyHeaders = modifyHeaders = new File(url.toURI());
profile.setEnableNativeEvents(false);
profile.addExtension(modifyHeaders);
profile.setPreference("modifyheaders.headers.count", 1);
profile.setPreference("modifyheaders.headers.action0", "Add");
profile.setPreference("modifyheaders.headers.name0", "DNT");
profile.setPreference("modifyheaders.headers.value0", "1");
profile.setPreference("modifyheaders.headers.enabled0", true);
profile.setPreference("modifyheaders.config.active", true);
profile.setPreference("modifyheaders.config.alwaysOn", true);
final DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
capabilities.setBrowserName("firefox");
capabilities.setPlatform(org.openqa.selenium.Platform.ANY);
capabilities.setCapability(FirefoxDriver.PROFILE, profile);
return new FirefoxDriver(capabilities);
}