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Selenium 4.49 is the latest release listed on the project’s official blog archive as of October 3, 2026. The updates most worth noting are the planned Java API change for Selenium 4.51, an official GitHub Container Registry mirror for Grid images, and the project’s direction toward WebDriver BiDi. These are separate developments: one is a released version, one is a future compatibility change, and the others affect Grid distribution and browser-protocol support.
Latest Selenium release: 4.49
The Selenium project announced Selenium 4.49 on September 9, 2026, with the release post opening: “Today we’re happy to announce that Selenium 4.49 has been released!” The official Selenium blog archive also lists 4.48 on August 27 and 4.47 on August 10. Those entries show recent release activity, but they do not establish a guaranteed release interval or schedule.
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For release details and upgrade decisions, use the announcement and release information linked from the project’s blog rather than assuming that a version number alone describes the changes relevant to your application.
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Java users: prepare for the announced 4.51 change
In a September 21, 2026 announcement, Selenium said that beginning with version 4.51, Java’s ExpectedCondition will stop implementing Guava’s Function interface. This is a planned change, not a description of Selenium 4.49. The project’s post explains who is affected and how to migrate; read it before upgrading if your Java code depends on that interface relationship.
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What to check before upgrading
- Search Java code and shared test utilities for places where an
ExpectedConditionis assigned to, passed as, or otherwise used as a GuavaFunction. - Review the project’s migration guidance for the 4.51 change at the Selenium blog.
- Test the upgrade against your application’s actual wait conditions and compile-time integrations before changing a shared test environment.
Grid images are available from an official GHCR mirror
Selenium announced that its official Grid Docker images are mirrored to GitHub Container Registry (GHCR), describing GHCR as an official alternative to Docker Hub. This gives teams another registry to consider when configuring where Grid images are pulled from.
Choose the registry that fits your infrastructure and image-pull policy, and update the image reference in your deployment configuration accordingly. The announcement does not establish that either registry is faster or cheaper for a particular team. See the registry announcement in the official archive for the project’s current details.
WebDriver BiDi is Selenium’s stated direction for browser communication
The Selenium archive says ChromeDevTools support for Firefox was removed and points to WebDriver BiDi as the way forward. It also notes that Puppeteer has moved to support WebDriver BiDi in Chromium browsers and Firefox. This is a direction of travel, not evidence that every browser, driver, or tool has complete feature parity.
If a test suite relies on browser-specific protocol features, verify support for the exact browser and operation you use before replacing an existing integration. Protocol availability alone does not guarantee identical behavior across implementations.
Other project updates worth putting in context
AI-generated Selenium code
A September 29, 2026 Selenium post introduced a documentation page addressing recurring errors in Selenium code written by coding agents. Developers using AI coding tools can consult that guidance when reviewing generated tests; generated code still needs validation against the project’s APIs and the target browser.
Historical Chrome telemetry
A Selenium project post in 2025 reported telemetry indicating that over 28 million users were locked to Chrome version 127.0.6533.99. That is a historical report about a specific browser version, not a current user count and not an independently verified estimate of Selenium users.
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Python support and development partners
The project’s 2025 archive announced that Selenium’s Python WebDriver bindings were ending support for Python 3.9. This older item matters when maintaining environments still pinned to that Python version; consult the relevant post for timing and upgrade specifics.
Selenium archive announcements also identify BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, and TestMu AI (formerly LambdaTest) as development partners. That identifies relationships reported by the project; it does not establish affiliate access or commercial terms.
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