Selenium for ChromeDriver and Chrome Browser and the log message "Only local connections are allowed"

As per the question "What Selenium version is compatible with ChromeDriver 2.35?" here are the relevant details :

• Selenium Client version : Almost all the recent Selenium Client versions are compatible with ChromeDriver v2.35 . As per best practices along with the moving timelines keep updating the Selenium Client versions and ChromeDriver versions. They are released after a successful Compatibility Testing .

• Selenium Client version 2.53.x : ChromeDriver v2.35 is also compatible with Selenium Client version 2.53.1 .

• Ideally, you need to download the matching ChromeDriver version from ChromeDriver Google Storage

  • ChromeDriver v84: Supports Chrome v84
  • ChromeDriver v83: Supports Chrome v83
  • ChromeDriver v82: Was intentionally skipped
  • ChromeDriver v81: Supports Chrome v81
  • ChromeDriver v80: Supports Chrome v80
  • ChromeDriver v79: Supports Chrome v79
  • ChromeDriver v78: Supports Chrome v78
  • ChromeDriver v77: Supports Chrome v77
  • ChromeDriver v76: Supports Chrome v76
  • ChromeDriver v75: Supports Chrome v75
  • ChromeDriver v74: Supports Chrome v74
  • ChromeDriver v73: Supports Chrome v73
  • ChromeDriver v2.46: Supports Chrome v71-73
  • ChromeDriver v2.45: Supports Chrome v70-72
  • ChromeDriver v2.44: Supports Chrome v69-71 (same as ChromeDriver 2.43, but with additional bug fixes)
  • ChromeDriver v2.43: Supports Chrome v69-71
  • ChromeDriver v2.42: Supports Chrome v68-70
  • ChromeDriver v2.41: Supports Chrome v67-69
  • ChromeDriver v2.40: Supports Chrome v66-68
  • ChromeDriver v2.39: Supports Chrome v66-68
  • ChromeDriver v2.38: Supports Chrome v65-67
  • ChromeDriver v2.37: Supports Chrome v64-66
  • ChromeDriver v2.36: Supports Chrome v63-65
  • ChromeDriver v2.35: Supports Chrome v62-64
  • ChromeDriver v2.34: Supports Chrome v61-63
  • ChromeDriver v2.33: Supports Chrome v60-62
  • ChromeDriver v2.32: Supports Chrome v59-61
  • ChromeDriver v2.31: Supports Chrome v58-60
  • ChromeDriver v2.30: Supports Chrome v58-60
  • ChromeDriver v2.29: Supports Chrome v56-58
  • ChromeDriver v2.28: Supports Chrome v55-57
  • ChromeDriver v2.27: Supports Chrome v54-56

Note: A few months ago, Chromium Team made a preliminary announcement that ChromeDriver's versioning model will be changing. Now we are moving forward with the plan. Specifically, ChromeDriver 2.46 will be the last release carrying the major version of 2. Future ChromeDriver releases will carry a version number similar to Chrome release. We will start with a release of ChromeDriver 73 next week, before the Beta release of Chrome 73.

Here is how the new release model will work:

• ChromeDriver will be using the same version number scheme as Chrome. See https://www.chromium.org/developers/version-numbers for more details.
• Each version of ChromeDriver will support Chrome with matching major, minor, and build version numbers. For example, upcoming ChromeDriver 73.0.3683.* will support all Chrome versions that start with 73.0.3683.
• Before a new major version of Chrome goes to Beta, a matching version of ChromeDriver will be released. For example, a new version of ChromeDriver will be release next week to match the Beta release of Chrome m73.
• After the initial release of a new major version, we will release patches as needed. These patches may or may not coincide with updates to Chrome.

Source : ChromeDriver - WebDriver for Chrome

About the log message "Only local connections are allowed" taking out a leaf from JimEvans's answer:

This [info] log message conveys that the ChromeDriver binary will only accept connections from the local machine.

As most of the driver implementations (GeckoDriver , IEDriverServer and ChromeDriver) creates an HTTP Server and the Selenium Clients (Java, Python, C#, NodeJS) all uses a JSON-over-HTTP protocol to communicate with the WebDriver and automates the Browser Client. As the HTTP server is only listening on an open port for HTTP requests generated by the client language bindings, connections to the HTTP server started by the client language bindings are restricted to only be allowed to come from the same processes on the same host. This limitation does not apply to connections the browser can make to third-party associated websites, rather it simply prevents incoming connections from other websites.