Scrapling/docs/fetching/stealthy.md

Introduction

Here, we will discuss the StealthyFetcher class. This class is similar to PlayWrightFetcher in many ways, like browser automation and using PlayWright as an engine for fetching websites. The main difference is that this class provides advanced anti-bot protection bypass capabilities and a modified Firefox browser called Camoufox, from which most stealth comes.

As with PlayWrightFetcher, you will need some knowledge about PlayWright's Page API to automate the page, as we will explain later.

Basic Usage

You have one primary way to import this Fetcher, which is the same for all fetchers.

>>> from scrapling.fetchers import StealthyFetcher

Check out how to configure the parsing options here

Notes:

1. Every time you fetch a website with this fetcher, it waits by default for all JavaScript to fully load and execute, so you don't have to (waits for the domcontentloaded state).
2. Of course, the async version of the fetch method is the async_fetch method.

Full list of arguments

Before jumping to examples, here's the full list of arguments

Argument	Description	Optional
url	Target url	❌
headless	Pass True to run the browser in headless/hidden (default), virtual to run it in virtual screen mode, or False for headful/visible mode. The virtual mode requires having xvfb installed.	✔️
block_images	Prevent the loading of images through Firefox preferences. This can help save your proxy usage, but be careful with this option as it makes some websites never finish loading.	✔️
disable_resources	Drop requests of unnecessary resources for a speed boost. It depends, but it made requests ~25% faster in my tests for some websites. Requests dropped are of type font, image, media, beacon, object, imageset, texttrack, websocket, csp_report, and stylesheet. This can help save your proxy usage, but be careful with this option as it makes some websites never finish loading.	✔️
google_search	Enabled by default, Scrapling will set the referer header as if this request came from a Google search for this website's domain name.	✔️
extra_headers	A dictionary of extra headers to add to the request. The referer set by the google_search argument takes priority over the referer set here if used together.	✔️
block_webrtc	Blocks WebRTC entirely.	✔️
page_action	Added for automation. A function that takes the page object and does the automation you need, then returns page again.	✔️
addons	List of Firefox addons to use. Must be paths to extracted addons.	✔️
humanize	Humanize the cursor movement. The cursor movement takes either True or the MAX duration in seconds. The cursor typically takes up to 1.5 seconds to move across the window.	✔️
allow_webgl	Enabled by default. Disabling WebGL is not recommended, as many WAFs now check if WebGL is enabled.	✔️
geoip	Recommended to use with proxies; Automatically use IP's longitude, latitude, timezone, country, locale, & spoof the WebRTC IP address. It will also calculate and spoof the browser's language based on the distribution of language speakers in the target region.	✔️
os_randomize	If enabled, Scrapling will randomize the OS fingerprints used. The default is matching the fingerprints with the current OS.	✔️
disable_ads	Disabled by default; this installs the uBlock Origin addon on the browser if enabled.	✔️
network_idle	Wait for the page until there are no network connections for at least 500 ms.	✔️
timeout	The timeout used in all operations and waits through the page. It's in milliseconds, and the default is 30000.	✔️
wait	The time (milliseconds) the fetcher will wait after everything finishes before closing the page and returning the Response object.	✔️
wait_selector	Wait for a specific css selector to be in a specific state.	✔️
wait_selector_state	Scrapling will wait for the given state to be fulfilled for the selector given with wait_selector. Default state is attached.	✔️
proxy	The proxy to be used with requests. It can be a string or a dictionary with the keys 'server', 'username', and 'password' only.	✔️
additional_arguments	Arguments passed to Camoufox as additional settings that take higher priority than Scrapling's.	✔️

Examples

It's easier to understand with examples, so now we will go over most of the arguments individually with examples.

Browser Modes

# Headless/hidden mode (default)
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch('https://example.com', headless=True)

# Virtual display mode (requires having `xvfb` installed)
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch('https://example.com', headless='virtual')

# Visible browser mode
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch('https://example.com', headless=False)

Resource Control

# Block images
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch('https://example.com', block_images=True)

# Disable unnecessary resources
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch('https://example.com', disable_resources=True)  # Blocks fonts, images, media, etc.

Additional stealth options

page = StealthyFetcher.fetch(
   'https://example.com',
   block_webrtc=True,  # Block WebRTC
   allow_webgl=False,  # Disable WebGL
   humanize=True,      # Make the mouse move as how a human would move it
   geoip=True,         # Use IP's longitude, latitude, timezone, country, and locale, then spoof the WebRTC IP address...
   os_randomize=True,  # Randomize the OS fingerprints used. The default is matching the fingerprints with the current OS.
   disable_ads=True,   # Block ads with uBlock Origin addon (enabled by default)
   google_search=True
)

# Custom humanization duration
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch(
    'https://example.com',
    humanize=1.5  # Max 1.5 seconds for cursor movement
)

The google_search argument is enabled by default. It makes the request as if it came from Google, so for a request for https://example.com, it will set the referer to https://www.google.com/search?q=example. Also, if used together, it takes priority over the referer set by the extra_headers argument.

Network Control

# Wait for network idle (Consider fetch to be finished when there are no network connections for at least 500 ms)
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch('https://example.com', network_idle=True)

# Custom timeout (in milliseconds)
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch('https://example.com', timeout=30000)  # 30 seconds

# Proxy support
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch(
    'https://example.com',
    proxy='http://username:password@host:port' # Or it can be a dictionary with the keys 'server', 'username', and 'password' only
)

Browser Automation

This is where your knowledge about PlayWright's Page API comes into play. The function you pass here takes the page object from Playwright's API, does what you want, and then returns it again for the current fetcher to continue working on it.

This function is executed right after waiting for network_idle (if enabled) and before waiting for the wait_selector argument, so it can be used for many things, not just automation. You can alter the page as you want.

In the example below, I used page mouse events to move the mouse wheel to scroll the page and then move the mouse.

from playwright.sync_api import Page

def scroll_page(page: Page):
    page.mouse.wheel(10, 0)
    page.mouse.move(100, 400)
    page.mouse.up()
    return page

page = StealthyFetcher.fetch(
    'https://example.com',
    page_action=scroll_page
)

Of course, if you use the async fetch version, the function must also be async.

from playwright.async_api import Page

async def scroll_page(page: Page):
   await page.mouse.wheel(10, 0)
   await page.mouse.move(100, 400)
   await page.mouse.up()
   return page

page = await StealthyFetcher.async_fetch(
    'https://example.com',
    page_action=scroll_page
)

Wait Conditions

# Wait for the selector
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch(
    'https://example.com',
    wait_selector='h1',
    wait_selector_state='visible'
)

This is the last wait the fetcher will do before returning the response (if enabled). You pass a CSS selector to the wait_selector argument, and the fetcher will wait for the state you passed in the wait_selector_state argument to be fulfilled. If you didn't pass a state, the default would be attached, which means it will wait for the element to be present in the DOM.

After that, the fetcher will check again to see if all JS files are loaded and executed (the domcontentloaded state) and wait for them to be. If you have enabled network_idle with this, the fetcher will wait for network_idle to be fulfilled again, as explained above.

The states the fetcher can wait for can be either (source):

• attached: wait for the element to be present in DOM.
• detached: wait for the element to not be present in DOM.
• visible: wait for the element to have a non-empty bounding box and no visibility:hidden. Note that an element without any content or with display:none has an empty bounding box and is not considered visible.
• hidden: Wait for the element to be detached from DOM, have an empty bounding box, or have visibility:hidden. This is opposite to the 'visible' option.

Firefox Addons

# Custom Firefox addons
page = StealthyFetcher.fetch(
    'https://example.com',
    addons=['/path/to/addon1', '/path/to/addon2']
)

The paths here must be paths of extracted addons, which will be installed automatically upon browser launch.

Real-world example (Amazon)

This is for educational purposes only; this example was generated by AI, which shows too how easy it is to work with Scrapling through AI

def scrape_amazon_product(url):
    # Use StealthyFetcher to bypass protection
    page = StealthyFetcher.fetch(url)

    # Extract product details
    return {
        'title': page.css_first('#productTitle::text').clean(),
        'price': page.css_first('.a-price .a-offscreen::text'),
        'rating': page.css_first('[data-feature-name="averageCustomerReviews"] .a-popover-trigger .a-color-base::text'),
        'reviews_count': page.css('#acrCustomerReviewText::text').re_first(r'[\d,]+'),
        'features': [
            li.clean() for li in page.css('#feature-bullets li span::text')
        ],
        'availability': page.css_first('#availability').get_all_text(strip=True),
        'images': [
            img.attrib['src'] for img in page.css('#altImages img')
        ]
    }

When to Use

Use StealthyFetcher when:

• Bypassing anti-bot protection
• Need a reliable browser fingerprint
• Full JavaScript support needed
• Want automatic stealth features
• Need browser automation