Stealth Plugins

Technical Definition

Stealth Plugins are specialized libraries that modify headless browser behavior and properties to appear as legitimate user browsers. Tools like puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth, playwright-stealth, and browserless-stealth apply dozens of patches: spoofing navigator properties, modifying WebGL renderer info, removing automation indicators, patching prototype chains that expose automation, and randomizing consistent fingerprint components. These plugins continuously update as anti-bot systems discover new detection vectors.

Business Use Case

Enterprise scrapers use stealth plugins to access sites with aggressive anti-bot protection. A market research firm deploying headless Chrome at scale applies stealth patches to avoid detection and blocking. Competitor intelligence teams use stealth-enabled browsers to access protected brand monitoring dashboards that block standard automation frameworks.

Pro-Tip

Even with stealth plugins, validate your fingerprint before production runs. Visit a fingerprinting service like amiunique.org or cover-your-tracks.com from your stealth browser and verify no automation indicators remain. Stealth plugins can have version mismatches with browser updates—run fingerprint validation in CI/CD pipelines to catch regressions before production deployment.