How to install PhantomJS on Ubuntu 16.04

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PhantomJS is a scripted, headless browser used for automating web page interaction.

PhantomJS provides a JavaScript API enabling automated navigation, screenshots, user behavior and assertions making it a common tool used to run browser-based unit tests in a headless system like a continuous integration environment. 

Below are the steps to install PhantomJS on Ubuntu 16.04

Step 1: Before you install PhantomJS you need to install some required packages

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential chrpath libssl-dev -y 
$ sudo apt-get install libxft-dev libfreetype6-dev -y
$sudo apt-get install libfreetype6 libfontconfig1-dev libfontconfig1 -y

Step 2: Download Stable version of PhantomJS, to check what is the current stable version navigate to their website or here https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/

$ sudo wget https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2

Step 3: Extract the download file to desired location

$ sudo tar xvjf phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 -C /usr/local/share/

Step 4: Create symlink

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/share/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64/bin/phantomjs /usr/local/bin/

Step 5: Check if successfully installed

$ phantomjs --version