Disable images in Selenium Google ChromeDriver

Question

How does one disable images in Google chrome when using it through Selenium and c#?

I've attempted 6 ways and none worked. I've even tried the answer on this StackOverflow question, however I think the info in it is out of date.

• Chrome driver: V2.2
• Chrome version: V29.0.1547.66 m
• Selenium: V2.35

All the attempts I've made don't cause exceptions, they run normally but still display images:

Attempt 1:

ChromeOptions co = new ChromeOptions();
co.AddArgument("--disable-images");
IWebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(co);

Attempt 2:

DesiredCapabilities capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.Chrome();
capabilities.SetCapability("chrome.switches", new string[1] { "disable-images" });

Attempt 3:

ChromeOptions co = new ChromeOptions();
co.AddAdditionalCapability("chrome.switches", new string[1] { "disable-images" });

Attempt 4:

var imageSetting = new Dictionary<string, object>();
imageSetting.Add("images", 2);
Dictionary<string, object> content = new Dictionary<string, object>();
content.Add("profile.default_content_settings", imageSetting);
var prefs = new Dictionary<string, object>();
prefs.Add("prefs", content);
var options = new ChromeOptions();
var field = options.GetType().GetField("additionalCapabilities", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
if (field != null)
{
    var dict = field.GetValue(options) as IDictionary<string, object>;
    if (dict != null)
        dict.Add(ChromeOptions.Capability, prefs);
}

Attempt 5:

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.AddAdditionalCapability("profile.default_content_settings", 2);

Attempt 6:

Dictionary<String, Object> contentSettings = new Dictionary<String, Object>();
contentSettings.Add("images", 2);
Dictionary<String, Object> preferences = new Dictionary<String, Object>();
preferences.Add("profile.default_content_settings", contentSettings);
DesiredCapabilities caps = DesiredCapabilities.Chrome();
caps.SetCapability("chrome.prefs", preferences);

Answer 1

This is my solution

IWebDriver driver;
ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.AddUserProfilePreference("profile.default_content_setting_values.images", 2);
driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

Answer 2

You should use --blink-settings instead of --disable-images by:

options.add_argument('--blink-settings=imagesEnabled=false')

which also works in headless mode. Setting profile doesn't work in headless mode. You can verify it by screenshot:

driver.get_screenshot_as_file('headless.png')

Note: I was using python with selenium, but I think it should be easy to transfer to c#.

Answer 3

For your method 1-3, I don't see a Chrome switch called --disable-images listed here. So even if the code snippets are correct, they won't work no matter what. Where did you get that switch? Any references?

For the methods 4-6, I assume you got the idea from this chromdriver issue. I don't know if this {'profile.default_content_settings': {'images': 2}} is still valid or not, but you can give it a try with the following code (which was originally the answer to How to set Chrome preferences using Selenium Webdriver .NET binding?, answer provided by Martin Devillers).

public class ChromeOptionsWithPrefs: ChromeOptions {
    public Dictionary<string,object> prefs { get; set; }
}

public static void Initialize() {
    var options = new ChromeOptionsWithPrefs();
    options.prefs = new Dictionary<string, object> {
        { "profile.default_content_settings", new Dictionary<string, object>() { "images", 2 } }
    };
    var driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
}