Guides

Written to be useful whether or not you use this project. If a page only made sense as an advert for it, it would not be worth reading. Each one is checked against the current source of the thing it describes - a detector’s own code, a framework’s launch options, Playwright’s own documentation - and several record something we got wrong first, measured and fixed rather than assumed.

Eight groups, roughly in the order a real investigation goes: what the browser itself gives away, then the rendering surfaces that need more than a property check, then the network, then the automation layer driving the browser, then the newer AI-agent angle, then the detectors themselves read from source, then the practical scraping how-tos, then how to test any of this without fooling yourself.

  • Browser Identity - Navigator, screen, headers and permissions: properties a site reads before anything is drawn, and checks against each other.
  • Canvas, WebGL, Fonts and Audio - surfaces that are drawn or rendered rather than declared, which makes them harder to fake than a plain property.
  • Network, Proxy and WebRTC - everything outside the JS engine: proxy authentication, DNS, WebRTC candidates, timezone, TLS, and what a container gives away.
  • The Automation Layer - the driver itself as a surface: the tell lives in how the browser is piloted, not in what it reports.
  • AI Agents and Frameworks - agent frameworks that drive a browser, checked from source: which use Playwright, which are CDP/Chromium-only.
  • Detectors, Explained - how well-known detectors work - sannysoft, CreepJS, BotD, FingerprintJS, reCAPTCHA v3 - read from their own source.
  • Scraping with Playwright - practical how-tos: blocked headless browsers, infinite scroll, proxy rotation, sessions behind a login, on stock Playwright.
  • Testing and Troubleshooting - what to check, and in what order, when automation is detected or a preference silently does nothing.

Looking for a specific tool instead? Comparisons covers Camoufox, Patchright, nodriver and playwright-stealth against this project, and the case for Firefox over Chromium generally.


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MIT licensed. Every page here is written against the current source of the thing it describes, and several record something we got wrong first.

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