# What is navigator.webdriver? | SoftGlaze Browser glossary > navigator.webdriver is true when a browser is under automated control. Why the standard sets it, why faking it can backfire, and how SoftGlaze handles it. - Canonical URL: https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary/navigator-webdriver - Last updated 2026-11-07 --- [Fingerprinting](https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary?category=fingerprinting) ## navigator.webdriver Also called webdriver flag, navigator webdriver true, enable-automation, automation flag Definition navigator.webdriver is a browser property that the W3C WebDriver standard requires to be true when the browser is under automated control, so a page can tell an automated session from a person using the browser. Last updated 7 November 2026 ### How it works The WebDriver standard, which Selenium and other automation tools are built on, says a browser must expose `navigator.webdriver` as `true` while it is being driven remotely. Chrome turns it on when it is started with its automation switch, which Selenium’s ChromeDriver and Puppeteer both pass by default. The same switch shows the “Chrome is being controlled by automated test software” bar. When a person opens a browser normally, the property is `false`. It exists so that sites can treat automated traffic differently, and many anti-bot scripts check it first. ### Why it matters when you run several accounts A profile that reports `true` is labelled as automated before anything else is looked at. The naive fix, overwriting the property from a script, has its own tells: the replaced getter may not look native when inspected, or may sit on the wrong object. Removing the cause is cleaner than hiding the symptom. ### How SoftGlaze Browser handles it When the app launches a Chromium profile it drops Puppeteer’s page-visible default switches, the automation switch among them, and gives Chrome a fixed DevTools port, because an automatically chosen one puts Chrome into automation mode. The property is only touched if Chrome still reports `true`, and then with a getter that looks native, because in the app’s testing, replacing a correct value for no reason was itself enough to draw challenges. The optional fingerprint-chromium engine hides it inside the browser instead. Extra stealth patches are used only for runs without a window. ### Sources 1. [Navigator: webdriver property](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/webdriver) MDN Web Docs 2. [WebDriver (W3C Recommendation)](https://www.w3.org/TR/webdriver2/) W3C Outside sources were checked in November 2026. Browsers, standards and vendors' pages change, so details that depend on them are as of that month. ### Related terms - [Browser automation](https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary/browser-automation) Browser automation is software controlling a web browser the way a person would, opening pages, clicking, typing and reading results, either from code, from a recorded macro or from an AI app. - [Headless browser](https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary/headless-browser) A headless browser is a web browser running without a visible window, controlled by a program, which loads and runs pages exactly as a normal browser would but shows nothing on screen. - [Selenium](https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary/selenium) Selenium is an open-source browser automation project whose WebDriver libraries control Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari through each browser's driver, using the W3C WebDriver standard. - [Puppeteer](https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary/puppeteer) Puppeteer is an open-source JavaScript library from Google's Chrome team for controlling Chrome or Firefox from code, through the Chrome DevTools Protocol or WebDriver BiDi. - [Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP)](https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary/chrome-devtools-protocol) The Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) is the interface Chromium-based browsers expose for debugging and control, a set of commands and events sent as JSON over a WebSocket, which DevTools, Puppeteer and many automation tools use. ### Read more on this site - [Automation](https://browser.softglaze.com/features/automation) - [Docs: automation](https://browser.softglaze.com/docs/automation) ### See it in SoftGlaze Browser Separate profiles, each with its own cookies, device values and proxy, on Windows. Try the app's screens in your browser first, or start the free trial; no card needed. [Download for Windows](https://browser.softglaze.com/download) [Try the demo](https://browser.softglaze.com/demo) [All terms](https://browser.softglaze.com/glossary)