One of the more interesting use cases that was unlocked with the new Node.js runtime for App Engine is the ability to run headless Chrome without having to do any setup or configuration. Previously, developers would need to run xvfb and X11, create a complicated Dockerfile, or configure OS dependencies themselves to get Chrome working on GCP—but not anymore. Now, we're pleased to announce that the Google Cloud Functions and Cloud Functions for Firebase Node.js 8 runtimes have also been upgraded with the OS packages required to run headless Chrome. This means that you can now author Cloud Functions that use headless Chrome---and utilize all the features of a web browser in a fully serverless environment. Headless Chrome lets you take advantage of the modern web platform features from Chromium and the Blink rendering engine too.
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