This is a feature that Chrome has had for about 6 years. The fact you haven't discovered it shows Chrome's UX could be better, but the fact you haven't searched for it might alsp show that the popups aren't quite such a problem for you after all.
Is that really a cleaner, less intrusive UX for you then it would be to have an easily ignorable button next to a website's address bar that would allow you to turn notifications on or off for each website with maybe three or four clicks at max?
I can always chose not to install an app.
> Is that really a cleaner, less intrusive UX for...
Imho it's a security question. I don't care if it's clean or less intrusive, the browser should be a sandbox.
Sure, but I can also choose not to use a website or service. If a set of features is only available in a specific medium (whether that's a website or an app) your choice is the same -- you either use it in that medium or you don't.
> the browser should be a sandbox.
This is an interesting point, because I do get where you're coming from, but I almost draw the opposite conclusion from the same data. The browser is a sandbox, so I want to put things in it. I refuse to install a native app to check my bank balance or post on social media, I don't trust those companies with that level of access to my phone.
The browser is a better sandbox than my native device, and notifications don't really break the browser sandbox in any significant way. So if (as heavyset_go suggests) notifications are the difference between having an app built in the sandbox or out of it, then I want notifications, because I want the app to be built in the sandbox.
If having notifications could make it feasible to use Twitter without installing an app, then great, we should do that. Or if notifications are enough that I don't need to have an email app or Matrix client installed... it's a pretty substantial win for security if I can get rid of those apps on my phone and use them as mobile progressive websites instead. Having email notifications on my phone is mandatory for me, I can't drop that feature. But is that alone a good reason to install a completely separate application that's requesting filesystem access or contact access?
If you turn notifications off for Chrome everywhere you won't see Chrome web notifications anywhere.
If you're talking about some other way websites can send notifications to your phone then I don't think that has anything to do with Chrome. And I can't think of what mechanism you're talking about.
That is true, but not really relevant to what he said. He didn't say "I wish there was a way to configure my browser to not send notifications to my phone".
You then followed up with a snarky line telling them the thing that bothers them doesn't actually bother them, and that wasn't great either.
He said he doesn't want chrome to be able to push notifications to his phone. Having an option to disable that feature means it is has to be possible in the first place.
Maybe I am being overly pedantic, but to me the distinction matters.
If you want it for yourself, you can make it happen. If you change a setting that disables ALL notifications for Chrome in your Android phone, your condition is satisfied. Chrome is not able to send notifications, unless the developers find a workaround :)
I want selected websites to be pushing notifications to me through Firefox. For example ebay-kleinanzeigen. Why should I install an app for that purpose?
>Chrome is not able to send notifications, unless the developers find a workaround :)
Yes, it is able to send notifications. It won't (or shouldn't, at least) but it is still capable of sending notifications.
If I put my manual transmission car in first gear, it's never going to shift to second, but it still able shift to second.
Lets say I told you your showerhead has the capability to live stream your showers on youtube, but that feature has been toggled off. I'm sure you would understand if some people didn't want that to be possible in the first place, whether or not you agree with them.
> Why should I install an app for that purpose?
I'm not saying you should! I'm not arguing the merits of the original opinion, I'm simply saying there is a difference between whether an application can do something, and whether it will do something.
Chrome should default not to prompt. Safari estimates that no one wants this, and I suspect they’re right.
It absolutely should. Making the default "never prompt" would lead to websites prompting users to modify their preferences and change security settings. We do not want to normalize that behaviour. It would be a security nightmare. The defaults might be a little annoying for users (who can switch it to never prompt if they want to) but keeping average users who do want email or chat notifications safe online should take priority.
And I don’t think web sites would prompt this as they don’t on Safari and that works out ok.
I think Chrome defaults stuff that Google thinks makes advertisers more money and Google more money. Safari defaults stuff that Apple thinks users want.
You might not, but our users requested desktop and mobile notifications. The notifications let sick patients know when their prescriptions are ready, facilitate care-provider check ups, etc.
It would be reasonable to allow notifications only to installed PWA, and not just any website you visit.
Then there would be people who are trying to make you "install" their PWA at any cost, then sell their install base and the buyers will simply rename the app/website to anything they want.
It can actually be another golden age for the web while making users hate their phones.
What would be different?
Getting asked to enable a browser feature is not more annoying than getting asked to exit the app and install a brand new native app with worse sandboxing and privacy. It's at most the same level of annoying.
The app experience is almost always better because you always have more screen real estate, higher performance, better persistence and the developer has more opportunities to monetise you which eases the need to shove all the adds technologically possible into your face before you leave and never come back.
Visiting a new website in 2021 has the following installation process:
0) click a link
1) download the website. Websites are bloated these days, things jump around until you download and execute a few MB of JS, CSS, HTML and so on.
2) accept/deny tracking(usually designed to trick you into accepting)
3) accept/deny subscribing to newsletters(usually the skip button is obscured)
4) try to figure out what is this all about, trying to distinguish site element from ads
5) if you still want to continue you probably will need to create an account for anything that's beyond an article. Many times, you will need to create an account even for an article
6) after all that jazz you can actually try out the app/website or consume the article
7) if you like what you see, you need to bookmark/add to home screen
An app experiance is something like this:
0) click a link
1) see screenshots and explanation of what this app is all about, accompanied with reviews and ratings
3) if you like what you se, tap install, make a fingerprint scan or a face scan to download and open the app
4) try out the app. if you like it, it will be on your homescreen to use again. if you don't like it, you can delete it from the same place.
For both cases, any use hardware or system API you will get about the same popup asking you to give access to location/microphone/camera/bluetooth. For the mobile app the experience of managing it will be easier since it will have standardised settings in the device settings and you know the permissions are revoked when you delete the app.
For web apps you don't have an uninstall process. You need to dive into browser settings to remove history, cookies etc.
> The app experience is almost always better
Strong disagree. Even on iOS native apps are more invasive and have fewer privacy controls than a website does. That's why all of these websites want you to install apps. Facebook isn't asking you to install their app because it'll be a better experience for you, they're asking you to install their app because then they can request contact permissions.
> 0) [...] 1) [...] 2) [...] etc...
This is just nonsense. You're arguing that configuring a browser to default-deny permission prompts is a worse experience than getting badgered to install a completely separate application every single time you visit Reddit.
And to your point on advertising, this is a good reason to have an app environment that supports competent adblocking. Neither Safari nor iOS provides APIs to do that for websites or for native apps.
This all kind of boils down to, you have an environment with less sandboxing, less privacy, less granular permissions, and a longer install process (visit a site, switch apps, download and install a new app, switch apps again, then uninstall and clean up when you're done); but it's OK because the process of building an app is so cumbersome that a lot of businesses won't bother? This may not be the persuasive argument you think it is.
I mean, you can tell me all you want that notification prompts are worse than the current system of websites constantly asking to exit the website and install a new thing that gives them native file access to my phone, but... I browse the mobile web. I know what the mobile web is like from day-to-day experience, notification prompts are not the reason that the mobile Reddit website is annoying to use.
Instead, I see a lot of "enable notifications to prove you're not a robot" scam fake-CAPTCHAs and a lot of newspaper/TV/media sites asking for it. Just because I want to read one article doesn't mean I'm naturally after an update every time you post anything else.
They'd get to claim privacy/user safety (no drive by permissions grab)
But, this eats into their walled garden money pit, so yeah it's not going to happen..
Personally, this is how I feel about downloading apps to my phone for every individual service and product. I see no need to download a separate app for each individual service I'm interested in, as the potential for abuse is higher than getting the occasional notification from my browser app and visiting their website.
However, it sounds to me like the focus should be on minimizing the potential for any avenue of information delivery to be abused, not to remove or decline to add features for fear that they will be. From the user side, I'm not interested in being told by a developer, "download my app if it's so important to you." I'd probably never discover how useful a service can be if I would have to download another app to try it. From the developer side, I'm not interested in telling potential users, "you actually don't want that feature."
However I routinely deny notification requests in Firefox so this is not a problem. I also routinely deny the permission to use canvas image data. Firefox warns it can be used to fingerprint browsers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-protection-agai...
Sadly Apple does its best to make more money. If they allow other browser engines they'd end up selling less apps. IMHO they'll care about privacy only until it positively correlates with making money. If it will ever cost them more than it gains, they'll find a way to weaken privacy without losing face.
An example, Apple ruthlessly enforcing in app payments for small companies but bowing to Netflix, Amazon and the like. They know they would sell less phones if those apps won't run on iOS.
And that's expected. Why would a company care about you and me in this age? No more than what you and me would care about ants.
Removing this feature from all users though is not a good solution either. Chrome allows you to block notifications from all sites so you don't have to dismiss requests anymore which seems like it would suit your needs and at the same time allow others to use this feature.
The whole discussion is about it being unnecessary resource use to develop said "simple app" due to Apple's restrictions on mobile Safari..
> Despite the web app working perfectly on Android and across Windows, Linux and macOS without native integration, we now must dedicate time and resources to develop an additional iOS app just so iOS users, which over half of Americans are, aren't left out.
> This is an expensive endeavor time-wise and money-wise, during a pandemic where time is of the essence and resources are stretched thin. It shouldn't be this way, but it is.
The end result is that, right now, some sick patients are punished for their wrong choice of phone or tablet because the native app doesn't exist yet, while others don't have a problem.
Personally on Android I have enabled notifications from a total of 2 sites and I find the experience quite good. I actually think its better than having to install an app for something that you rarely use just for that one time you will need to receive a notification from it.
Who are you? And why does only your absolute opinion matter, when others are asking for a choice?
We are the the 99%
I'm not defending stupid notification popups from some website you'll only ever visit once. Those are annoying. I'm saying you can't tell what users want unless you specifically measure exactly that. Maybe you're right and 99% of users don't want notifications, but that's not what your cited numbers show. You're drawing a conclusion from the data that isn't there.
And besides, for something to be spam you need to actually see it. In the case of notifications if you deny the permission on a site you don't see the notifications. That's the perfect spam filter. Imagine a world where people could only send you email if you explicitly said you accepted it from them. Or if robocallers could only call you if you agreed first. Spam would be over. There would be no spam. That sounds fantastic.
> Somehow, by the time it reaches any of my multiple inboxes it’s not 99% spam
Right. Email providers didn't fix spam by throwing away the ability to send unsolicited messages, they fixed it by looking at the behavior of bad actors and blocking it, and evolving the UX of email services to adapt ("Report Spam" buttons and the like). My comment above was intended to suggest that rather than demanding the industry throw out the feature that would allow a website to send notifications at all, they can instead invest in making the experience more streamlined for the user (fewer notifications, less intrusive request flow). They could even use some of the same techniques used in fighting spam, like allowing users to report sites that are abusive in how they ask for permission.
The subtext here is that I think progressive web apps have the potential to foster a more open online culture than can be achieved through app stores alone, and they also give the user more control over the experience, since they leverage the browser, which is a "user agent" in a way that that apps rarely (if ever) achieve. Adopting a stance that solidifies the current inadequacies of web apps pushes more users and developers to "app store apps", which tilt the balance of power towards app store owners and away from users and developers. I think that trend has already caused problems (Spotify, Fortnite, Librem Tunnel[0], etc.), and I don't see any reason the problems will lessen in the future.
[0]: https://puri.sm/posts/why-librem-tunnel-is-leaving-ios/
Firefox unfortunately has no choice but to be dragged along by Google.
Why not? Web browsers are not just for reading text based articles. Most use a calendar, email, perhaps some kind of chat app through their browser. Aren't these and other similar use cases good reasons for notifications to exist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect
All in all, building out applications using cross-platform frameworks seems to be a far better solution for end users, and not significantly worse in terms of developer velocity, but I think there are other reasons they are not adopted, primarily that the web makes it far easier to invade privacy and deploy dark patterns, while that behavior typically is checked by the app store approval process for "native" or cross-platform applications.
Disagree. One reason sites want me to use their app is because I can’t block trackers. I wont use native apps if there is a web alternative BECAUSE i value privacy.
Also websites have realized that I am going to click No in the browser, so now they popup first asking if I want to allow push notifications in JavaScript so when I click no, they can ask me again later, vs if they popped up the browser and got a "No" there they could never ask me again.
I don't like notifications. I never get any notifications requests, unless I'm in a private window trying because some site wouldn't work with adblockers etc. Life can be so simple.
I don't want your phone calls. Your conversation is not important enough that I'm willing to be interrupted by you. The lack of phone calls is a desired feature. Please stop using phone calls. If I want to talk to you I will write you a letter. You don't have to nudge me into it.
The problem with not implementing notifications is that when they are useful (instant dispatch software), they are not implemented. But honestly I’d just spin up a telegram or email bot, if clients were not brainwashed with tekhnology. Messages and email are notifications. It is also a matter of minutes, opposed to creating a stupid service worker client-server-like runtime and trying to get things right without any test mode (long story short, implementing and debugging webpush requires publishing every change to a certified https host). There is even an entire company that sells you a properly configured webpush as a service. That’s just stupid.
This would have made it possible to offer notifications without being in-your-face about it, which would have made them more amenable for sites that were concerned about brand image and user feedback. The paradigm might not have become unavoidably tainted, and we'd just name-and-shame the bad actors.
It also makes it clear that the notification consent shouldn't be a one-way street-- you should be able to discontinue notifications through the same UI and in an obvious manner, rather than treating it as a consent you can easily offer, but not easily retract.
If I were on the Mobile Safari team, I'd propose bundling notifications into the bookmark workflow. If a user chooses to bookmark a site, prompt them at that moment (as an option in the modal) to subscribe to notifications if the site offers it. Because the user is expressing an interest in returning to the site, it's now appropriate to ask them to enable notifications, versus their first visit.
(For sites accessed through a synced iCloud bookmark, however, I would show a notifications prompt for the first visit on that device.)
Everyone acts like
1. For some reason it has to be some sort of pop up, it could easily be a small icon in your bar
2. Apple couldn’t/wouldn’t design this so that it was unobtrusive
3. If the way they did design it was still too annoying, they wouldn’t make it less so, or make it easy to turn off
Why do so many on HN argue from “if it existed it would obviously be in form X that already exists and therefore be bad and therefore I never want it and will oppose it vehemently” it’s a total lack of capability of even the most incremental innovative thinking.
Honestly, HN is a cargo cult of native only, anti web app sentiment. It’s frustrating.
Your opinion isn’t held by other people, some of whom disagree with your opinion and are expressing that.
The other opinion seems "notifications cannot be disabled, therefore notifications are bad".
If you don't want to see notification requests, you never will. Granted: you need to be able to change settings, in a very restricted environment or with a custom clone of some browser you might not be able to.
For most users, that's not a problem. I'm one of them. I don't see notification requests on my desktop or phone. Neither do I see requests for geo-location, even though the browser is fundamentally capable of providing my geo-location to websites through an API; I've disabled it.
It is a popup right now... it is in your face and requires immediate action.
An example:
Using:
https://www.bennish.net/web-notifications.html
> 2. Apple couldn’t/wouldn’t design this so that it was unobtrusive
It is obtrusive in that it is a full-window popover and you can't go to any other tabs until you have completed the action.
> 3. If the way they did design it was still too annoying, they wouldn’t make it less so, or make it easy to turn off
You can currently disable it browser wide in Preferences -> Websites => "Allow websites to ask permission to send notifications".
However, that doesn't stop various websites from displaying their own JavaScript based popups and requests before even attempting to use the Web Push Notifications API to see if the user wants to grant access using the native API's.
This way they can nag the user over and over to enable notifications whereas if you deny it once in the browser you need to take a bunch of manual steps to remove the website and grant them access.
On Firefox, it just puts a little message window icon in your address bar if you didn't trigger the Notifications API permission via a control on the website. When you do trigger the permissions through user interaction, and unobstructive widget shows up[2] that can be promptly hidden without ever actually interacting with it, unlike in your Safari example.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi...
[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/push-notifications-fire...
Firefox as much as I love it, and has been my main browser linage since the Netscape days, doesn't stand a chance.
Specially when everyone is now packaging Chrome as Electron, while praising it for GNU/Linux desktop apps.
99% of Electron stuff could be done as pure Web application, and if native support is required, running as daemon.
With Firefox I don't see any issues related to the marketshare. All add-ons I want are available and all websites work just fine except one or two that just block it outright just out of spite (Apple Business Manager - business.apple.com being one)
As far as I know Mozilla doesn't have that many sources to keep it running, and the latest round of layouffs was kind of a signal of what is yet to come.
Let Google close the money stream and lets see what happens.
I hope to be wrong.
I would pay a lot though to keep it going. Like 100 a year or so (for me that's a lot :) )
> the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps
I.e. implying that progressive web apps are only possible if a specific set of features are supported everywhere. It’s like saying that accessibility is only possible if no users have disabilities.
Your confusion comes from your personal definition of "Progressive Web App"
For sure the confusion starts from their name, but in short «A progressive web application (PWA) is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It is intended to work on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser, including both desktop and mobile devices.»
Emphasis on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser, in this case Safari is not standard compliant.
A Progressive Web App (or PWA in short) is not the same thing of "progressive enhancement" or "graceful degradation" for regular Web Application.
Those are just some of the features, but it doesn't stops there.
Some of the fundamental charateritics of a PWA include being
- App-like — Feels like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation
- Re-engageable — Ability to use push notifications to maintain engagement with the user
As you can see being able to notify the user is a key feature of a PWA.
Which is not possible if some vendor refuses to implement the standard features that narrow the gap between Web and Native, like Apple is deliberately doing with Safari.
It's not too hard to make them work without those features, that's not the point, the point is it's impossible to have the same feature set on every platform because one vendor in particular doesn't want you to, they want you to develop native applications which is vastly more costly and it feels like wasting effort and money on something that should have worked with almost the same capabilities on all the major platforms with little or no modifications. It's true everywhere, except on Apple mobile devices, where you can't even chose the web rendering engine.
1: https://infrequently.org/2015/06/progressive-apps-escaping-t...
It is almost Electron level bad.
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Push_API
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Notificatio...
I think apart from Gitter I’ve never wanted a notification, as a user.
Do you find that most users do authentication via phone number instead of email?
This experience is geographically or demographically unique.
Now do you see why "the average user" isn't useful to determine how to build something? Even if most people suck at using email, in my app it works well.
Please be kind and not sneer as the guidelines suggest.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You could easily reword you comment to.
> In my experience the average user barely uses email.
Unless you know parent commenter personally I don't think you're competent enough to judge their experience in an online discussion.
I use them for some local forums to notify me of replies. Don't want to fill up my inbox for this.
Push notifications are subject to the same HIPPA rules as sms. You can’t included sensitive info.
Spammy notification requests should be mitigated with better browser guards for requesting them. The fact that there is spam does not somehow invalidate that there are legitimate use cases people want them for.
This includes what vaccine I received, the lot number of its production, plus information from v-safe[1] and reminders to check in telling the government how I feel on days after the vaccine.
Mobile is already bad enough where if you swipe a notification away, well I hope you remembered the icon and the bit of context that was on that notification. Browser notifications just make this worse.
And then there's the whole "will I get a notification if the browser app is closed? What if I get a notification in the middle of the night, will I receive it in the morning? Will it continue to receive notifications if I restart my phone?" kind of questions. Maybe it all just works but I am very untrusting of the whole feature.
So no, lack of push notifications are not holding back PWAs. They are holding back web developers which choose to aggressively require new features, then get upset when they only work in the browser they tested with (invariably Chrome).
I’m not against web notifications per se, but I’m not buying that most web applications are held back because notifications are actually crucial to them functioning.
If the app really is a game changer, if it's that compelling, Apple will absolutely change its tune.
As an example, my girlfriend's a nurse, and they have a really bad paging system. Basically, the doctor calls the hospital reception who calls one person who is on call, who calls the second person on call. Of course, this breaks up regularly: the wrong person is called, or they call their boss because they don't know who is on call, and so on.
I thought I would do a PWA to help them out and learn some new things, but it's pretty much impossible on iOS. Now, if 50% of her team cannot use the app, it has no value. You would have to know who has the app or not and call the other ones. It's easier to just keep on calling directly.
This wasn’t true 10 years ago when Instagram launched, and was iPhone only for a considerable time.
Clubhouse seems to think it’s not true today either, also iPhone only.
iPhone users are, on average, higher earners than the median American [1]. Being iOS only means you get the vast majority of high-income Americans.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/195006/percentage-of-us-...
Complaining a browser doesn’t support a progressive feature is a contradiction in terms!
If your app doesn’t work like that then it’s not progressive... so you can’t complain it doesn’t support your progressive app because it’s not progressive.
The only solution I see is telling users to "use the app", which doesn't exist yet.
Remember that we had real time webchat without JavaScript two decades ago, and a lot of other things that would probably turn into some sort of Chrome-only site if invented today.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something about the problem, I don't do iOS dev or any webdev complicated enough to require OS notifications.
As an iPhone user, this being difficult for developers is a highly desirable feature!
These are only the ones that I remember right now, but I know there is more
Safari has had add to home screen for the best part of a decade. Giving web pages the ability to spam users to add it is an anti feature.
On Chrome you can trigger a add to home screen prompt from your own UI, making it a two touch experience. On iOS IIRC it only works on Safari and not in Chrome, but I could be wrong.
> no one wants notifications from random websites
I am not talking about random websites, but rather web applications that you interact with on regular basis, if Apple cared about the user experience they could have just moved the notification prompt behind a user interaction.
> shared worker ... They burn battery life
If you are building more demanding websites shared workers are a great way to share state and computing resources across and thus saving battery life. Spawing a Worker per tab is more demanding.
Wikipedia says it does support it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application:
And I know I’ve written Progressive apps for iOS myself - manifests etc.
So I know it’s not as simple as you’re saying. What do you really mean?
Is that against the App Store guidelines? Or is that a programming limitation? I am aware all the iOS browsers are just a wrapper around WKWebView but am curious why another engine can't be implemented.
But Safari will never be a serious option for me. I want the same browser on all my systems and I use a lot more than Mac and iOS. So Firefox it is.
The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps.
I recently worked on a health app related to the COVID pandemic. The most common use case would be served really well by a PWA, and as such, there's no reason users would need to install an app on their phones to access the web app's full set of features.
Despite the web app working perfectly on Android and across Windows, Linux and macOS without native integration, we now must dedicate time and resources to develop an additional iOS app just so iOS users, which over half of Americans are, aren't left out.
This is an expensive endeavor time-wise and money-wise, during a pandemic where time is of the essence and resources are stretched thin. It shouldn't be this way, but it is.