Is there a way to clear session data to ensure a clean session is initiated each time?

Question

For IE you would use capabilities like this:

DesiredCapabilities cap = new DesiredCapabilities();
cap.setCapability(InternetExplorerDriver.IE_ENSURE_CLEAN_SESSION, true);

and possibly in combination with

 driver.manage().deleteAllCookies(); 

How could this be achieved using Chrome and ChromeDriver?

Answer 1

While we work with Internet Explorer Driver we use the field IE_ENSURE_CLEAN_SESSION

IE_ENSURE_CLEAN_SESSION

As per the JavaDocs IE_ENSURE_CLEAN_SESSION is the Capability that defines whether to clean or not browser cache before launching Internet Explorer by IEDriverServer and is configured as follows :

DesiredCapabilities cap = new DesiredCapabilities();
cap.setCapability(InternetExplorerDriver.IE_ENSURE_CLEAN_SESSION, true);

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Now let us have a look at GeckoDriver which follows the WebDriver Spec.

GeckoDriver / moz:profile / rust_mozprofile

If you have a closer look at the geckodriver logs closely you will observe that each time geckodriver is called a new moz:profile is scopped out and the details of rust_mozprofile occurs in the following line:

Marionette  CONFIG  Matched capabilities: {"browserName":"firefox","browserVersion":"56.0","platformName":"windows_nt","platformVersion":"6.2","pageLoadStrategy":"normal","acceptInsecureCerts":false,"timeouts":{"implicit":0,"pageLoad":300000,"script":30000},"rotatable":false,"specificationLevel":0,"moz:processID":5848,"moz:profile":"C:\\Users\\AtechM_03\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\rust_mozprofile.OfFuR9ogm33d","moz:accessibilityChecks":false,"moz:headless":false}

This log clearly indicates that Marionette scoops out a new "moz:profile":"C:\\Users\\AtechM_03\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\rust_mozprofile.OfFuR9ogm33d" and this configuration is handled by the WebDriver instance i.e. the GeckoDriver.

You can find a more detailed discussion on moz:profile in Is it Firefox or Geckodriver, which creates “rust_mozprofile” directory discussion.

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ChromeDriver

ChromeDriver which is following the same WebDriver Spec does abides (will be abiding) by the same suite.

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Incase you are using any stored FirefoxProfile or ChromeProfile, WebDriver will pick up the existing profile where the Stored Browser Configurations are picked up for reuse.

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driver.manage().deleteAllCookies();

Irespective of New/Existing FirefoxProfile or ChromeProfile if you add the line :

driver.manage().deleteAllCookies(); 

Only the cookies gets deleted only to be get restored back to support the Active Browser Session