From Installation to Production: Master Undetected-Chromedriver for Web Scraping

You’ve spent days crafting a perfect web scraping script with Selenium, only to be greeted by Cloudflare’s 5-second challenge, Imperva’s “Access Denied” page, or Datadome’s bot warning. Sound familiar? Traditional Selenium Chromedriver leaves too many “bot footprints”—like thenavigator.webdriver flag, non-human user-agent strings, and abnormal browser configurations—that anti-bot systems easily detect.

This is where undetected-chromedriver comes in. As an optimized, patched version of Selenium’s Chromedriver, it minimizes these footprints to make your automated browser behave like a real human. But here’s the catch: even with undetected-chromedriver, frequent requests from a single IP address will still get you blocked. That’s why a reliable proxy service is indispensable. Among various proxy solutions, IPFLY stands out with its no-client design—no extra software installation, seamless integration with undetected-chromedriver, and 99.9% uptime to ensure your scraping tasks run smoothly.

In this guide, we’ll not only cover the basics of undetected-chromedriver (installation, basic usage) but also dive into its working principles, advanced anti-detection configurations, and step-by-step integration with IPFLY proxy. Whether you’re a beginner looking to get started or an experienced developer struggling with persistent blocking issues, this guide has you covered.

What Is Undetected-Chromedriver & How Does It Bypass Anti-Bots?

Before diving into practical operations, it’s crucial to understand what makes undetected-chromedriver different from the standard Chromedriver. Simply put, undetected-chromedriver is a Python library that patches the standard Chromedriver to eliminate the “leaks” that anti-bot systems use to identify automated browsers.

Core Working Principles

Undetected-chromedriver bypasses anti-bot systems through the following key techniques:

• Variable Renaming: It renames Selenium-specific variables to match those used by genuine browsers, avoiding detection based on unique variable signatures.
• Genuine User-Agent Strings: It uses real-world user-agent strings instead of generic ones, making the browser appear more authentic.
• Disabling Automation Flags: It patches the navigator.webdriver property (a common detection point) to return undefined instead of true.
• Natural Session Management: It properly handles cookies, local storage, and session states, simulating the way real users browse.
• Proxy Compatibility: It natively supports proxy configurations, allowing users to rotate IP addresses to avoid IP-based blocking.

Key Advantages Over Standard Chromedriver

Compared to the standard Selenium Chromedriver, undetected-chromedriver offers three major advantages for web scraping:

1.Higher Anti-Detection Success Rate: It can bypass most mainstream anti-bot systems, including Cloudflare, Imperva, and Datadome.

2.Automatic Driver Management: It automatically downloads and patches the correct Chromedriver version matching your Chrome browser, eliminating manual version matching headaches.

3.Flexible Configuration: It supports all standard ChromeOptions while adding extra anti-detection parameters for more granular control.

Step-by-Step: Get Started with Undetected-Chromedriver

Let’s walk through the core steps of using undetected-chromedriver, from environment setup to basic scraping. We’ll use Python (3.6+) as the development language, which is the most widely used for undetected-chromedriver.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.6 or higher: Check your Python version with python --version (or python3 --version on macOS/Linux).
• Latest Chrome Browser: Undetected-chromedriver relies on Chrome, so ensure you have the latest stable version installed.
• Virtual Environment (Recommended): Avoid dependency conflicts with other projects. Use Python’s built-in venv or third-party tools like uv.

Install Undetected-Chromedriver

Install the library via pip with a single command:

# Install the latest version
pip install undetected-chromedriver

# If you encounter compatibility issues, install a specific stable version (e.g., 3.5.5)
pip install undetected-chromedriver==3.5.5

Troubleshooting Tip: If you see ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'undetected_chromedriver', ensure pip is installed in the same Python environment you’re using, or use pip3 instead of pip.

Basic Usage: First Anti-Detection Scraping Script

Let’s write a simple script to scrape a page protected by anti-bot measures (e.g., nowsecure.nl, a common test site for anti-detection tools). This script will verify that undetected-chromedriver can bypass basic blocking:

import undetected_chromedriver as uc
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
import time

# Configure Chrome options
options = uc.ChromeOptions()
# Optional: Enable headless mode (note: some sites detect headless, use cautiously)
# options.add_argument("--headless=new")
# Disable audio to reduce footprints
options.add_argument("--mute-audio")
# Add a genuine user-agent (replace with a real one from your browser)
options.add_argument("user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36")

# Create the undetected-chromedriver instance
driver = uc.Chrome(options=options)

try:
    # Navigate to the test site
    driver.get("https://nowsecure.nl")
    # Wait for the page to load (simulate human behavior)
    time.sleep(3)
    # Scrape the page title
    page_title = driver.title
    print(f"Page Title: {page_title}")
    # Save a screenshot to verify access
    driver.save_screenshot("nowsecure_access.png")
    print("Scraping successful! Screenshot saved as 'nowsecure_access.png'")
finally:
    # Close the browser
    driver.quit()

Run the script. If it prints the page title and saves the screenshot without errors, congratulations—you’ve successfully bypassed the anti-bot measures with undetected-chromedriver!

Advanced Configuration: Enhance Anti-Detection Capabilities

For more strict anti-bot systems (e.g., Amazon, eBay), you need additional configurations to mimic human behavior. Here are key advanced settings:

import undetected_chromedriver as uc
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
import time
import random

def create_stealth_driver():
    options = uc.ChromeOptions()
    # Core anti-detection options
    options.add_argument("--disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled")
    options.add_argument("--no-sandbox")
    options.add_argument("--disable-dev-shm-usage")
    # Disable extensions to avoid footprints
    options.add_argument("--disable-extensions")
    # Use a custom user data directory to simulate a regular user profile
    options.add_argument("--user-data-dir=C:/Temp/ChromeUserData")  # Windows example
    # Randomize window size (real users don't use fixed sizes)
    window_sizes = [(1920, 1080), (1366, 768), (1536, 864)]
    width, height = random.choice(window_sizes)
    options.add_argument(f"--window-size={width},{height}")

    # Create driver
    driver = uc.Chrome(options=options)

    # Further hide automation traces with JavaScript
    driver.execute_script("""
        Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'webdriver', {get: () => undefined});
        Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'plugins', {get: () => [1, 2, 3]});
        Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'languages', {get: () => ['en-US', 'en']});
    """)

    # Simulate random mouse movement (mimic human behavior)
    ActionChains(driver).move_by_offset(random.randint(10, 50), random.randint(10, 50)).perform()

    return driver

# Usage
driver = create_stealth_driver()
try:
    driver.get("https://www.amazon.com")
    time.sleep(random.uniform(2, 5))  # Random delay
    # Simulate search (human-like typing speed)
    search_box = driver.find_element(By.ID, "twotabsearchtextbox")
    for char in "wireless headphones":
        search_box.send_keys(char)
        time.sleep(random.uniform(0.1, 0.3))
    search_box.send_keys(Keys.ENTER)
    time.sleep(random.uniform(3, 6))
    print("Advanced scraping setup successful!")
finally:
    driver.quit()

Critical for Long-Term Scraping: Integrate Proxy with Undetected-Chromedriver

Even with the most advanced anti-detection configurations, undetected-chromedriver can’t solve IP-based blocking. If you send dozens of requests from the same IP address, the target site will still flag you as a bot and block your access. This is where a high-quality proxy service becomes essential.

Why Proxies Fail with Undetected-Chromedriver (Common Pitfalls)

Many developers struggle with proxy integration because of these common issues:

• Proxy Client Bloat: Services like Bright Data require installing a Proxy Manager client, which adds extra layers of complexity and may introduce new footprints.
• Authentication Issues: Basic proxies often trigger Chrome’s authentication pop-ups, which break automated workflows.
• Low Uptime: Unreliable proxies drop connections mid-scraping, leading to incomplete data collection.
• Protocol Incompatibility: Some proxies don’t work with undetected-chromedriver’s patched Chrome instance, causing session crashes.

IPFLY: The No-Client Proxy Solution for Undetected-Chromedriver

IPFLY solves these problems with its lightweight, no-client design—perfect for pairing with undetected-chromedriver. Here’s why IPFLY is the ideal choice:

• No Client Installation: Configure directly via code or ChromeOptions, no extra software needed. This keeps your scraping environment clean and avoids adding new detection points.
• 99.9% Uptime: IPFLY’s global residential IP network with BGP multi-line redundancy ensures stable connections, critical for long-running scraping tasks.
• Seamless Authentication: Embed username/password directly in the proxy URL to avoid pop-ups, fully compatible with undetected-chromedriver.
• Multi-Protocol Support: Supports SOCKS5, HTTP, and HTTPS protocols, giving you flexibility based on the target site’s requirements.
• Cost-Effective: Pay-as-you-go pricing starts at $0.8/GB, a fraction of the cost of competitors like Oxylabs.

Step-by-Step: Integrate IPFLY with Undetected-Chromedriver

Follow these steps to configure IPFLY proxy in your undetected-chromedriver workflow:

Step 1: Get IPFLY Proxy Details

Log into your IPFLY account, generate a residential proxy, and obtain the proxy URL in the format: socks5://username:password@proxy-ip:port (SOCKS5 is recommended for better anti-detection performance).

Step 2: Integrate IPFLY Proxy into Undetected-Chromedriver

Use ChromeOptions to add the proxy configuration. Here’s a complete example combining advanced anti-detection settings and IPFLY proxy:

import undetected_chromedriver as uc
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
import time
import random

# IPFLY proxy configuration (replace with your actual proxy details)
IPFLY_PROXY = "socks5://username:password@proxy-ip:port"

def create_stealth_driver_with_proxy():
    options = uc.ChromeOptions()
    # Core anti-detection options
    options.add_argument("--disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled")
    options.add_argument("--no-sandbox")
    options.add_argument("--disable-dev-shm-usage")
    options.add_argument("--mute-audio")
    # Add genuine user-agent
    options.add_argument("user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36")
    # Configure IPFLY proxy
    options.add_argument(f'--proxy-server={IPFLY_PROXY}')

    # Create driver
    driver = uc.Chrome(options=options)

    # Hide automation traces
    driver.execute_script("""
        Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'webdriver', {get: () => undefined});
        Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'languages', {get: () => ['en-US', 'en']});
    """)

    return driver

# Test the proxy + anti-detection setup
driver = create_stealth_driver_with_proxy()
try:
    # Navigate to a site to check IP
    driver.get("https://api.ipify.org")
    time.sleep(2)
    proxy_ip = driver.find_element(By.TAG_NAME, "body").text
    print(f"Current Proxy IP: {proxy_ip}")

    # Navigate to a protected site (e.g., Amazon)
    driver.get("https://www.amazon.com")
    time.sleep(random.uniform(3, 5))
    print("Successfully accessed Amazon with IPFLY proxy!")
finally:
    driver.quit()

Step 3: Verify Proxy Effectiveness

Run the script. The printed IP address should match your IPFLY proxy IP, confirming the integration is successful. If you can access Amazon or other protected sites without being blocked, your setup is working correctly.

Proxy Service Comparison: IPFLY vs. Competitors for Undetected-Chromedriver

To help you understand why IPFLY is the best fit for undetected-chromedriver, let’s compare it with mainstream proxy services Bright Data and Oxylabs across key metrics:

Key Takeaway: For undetected-chromedriver users, IPFLY’s no-client design, high uptime, and affordability make it the most practical choice. Competitors force you to deal with unnecessary client installations and high costs, while IPFLY keeps your workflow lightweight and efficient.

Whether you’re looking for reliable proxy services or want to master the latest proxy operation strategies, IPFLY has you covered! Hurry to visit IPFLY.net and join the IPFLY Telegram community—with first-hand information and professional support, let proxies become a boost for your business, not a problem!

Troubleshooting Common Undetected-Chromedriver Issues

Even with the right setup, you may encounter issues. Here are solutions to the most frequent problems:

“Session Not Created” Error

Cause: Mismatch between undetected-chromedriver version and Chrome browser version. Solution: Update undetected-chromedriver to the latest version, or install a version compatible with your Chrome. Check the Chrome version (Settings > About Chrome) and install the corresponding undetected-chromedriver version.

# Install a specific version compatible with Chrome 120+
pip install undetected-chromedriver==3.5.5

Still Being Detected by Cloudflare/Datadome

Cause: Missing advanced anti-detection configurations or static IP address. Solution: Add the advanced settings from Section 2.4 (disable AutomationControlled, randomize window size, simulate human interactions) and use IPFLY’s rotating residential proxies to change IP addresses regularly.

Proxy Authentication Pop-Ups

Cause: Incorrect proxy authentication method. Solution: Use IPFLY’s URL-embedded credentials (e.g., socks5://username:password@ip:port) instead of basic proxy settings. This avoids Chrome’s authentication pop-ups.

Headless Mode Detection

Cause: Some sites detect headless mode via JavaScript. Solution: Avoid headless mode for strict anti-bot sites. If you must use it, use the new headless mode (--headless=new) and add extra configurations to mimic a real browser:

options.add_argument("--headless=new")
options.add_argument("--window-size=1920,1080")
options.add_argument("--disable-gpu")

Master Anti-Detection Scraping with Undetected-Chromedriver + IPFLY

Undetected-chromedriver eliminates the “bot footprints” that plague traditional Selenium, making it a must-have tool for web scraping. But to unlock its full potential and avoid IP-based blocking, you need a reliable proxy service. IPFLY’s no-client design, 99.9% uptime, and seamless integration with undetected-chromedriver make it the perfect partner—keeping your scraping workflow lightweight, stable, and cost-effective.

By following the steps in this guide, you can build a robust anti-detection scraping system that bypasses most anti-bot measures. Whether you’re scraping e-commerce data, market research, or content aggregation, this combination will help you collect data efficiently without constant blocking headaches.

Now, it’s time to put these techniques into practice. Grab your IPFLY proxy, fire up undetected-chromedriver, and take your web scraping to the next level!