JDBC-ODBC Bridge support in Java 8

JDBC-ODBC Bridge offered lot of flexibility in connecting a data source. Many had used this bridge to connect & query MS Excel / MS Access as a database. Starting from Java 8, Oracle has removed this feature. This created a major blocker for many to upgrade to new Java version & many applications which were built based on this have failed.

As an interim solution, one can build an extension from jdbc classes of previous java version & add it to Java 8 extensions.

Follow the below steps to enable the JDBC-ODBC Bridge support in Java 8.

Launch Browser with Extensions - Webdriver

Launching the selenium webdriver, by default opens the plain browser without any extensions.
But there is way, to launch the chrome browser along with the pre-installed extensions.

To load any chrome extension in webdriver, we need to package the extension to .crx file & refer the same file in the desired capabilities / chrome options to load when the browser is launched.

Follow the steps mentioned in the below link to create .crx file.
https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/packaging

Refer the *.crx file path in your code & launch the browser.