[HN Gopher] Web Push Notifications in WebKit
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Web Push Notifications in WebKit
Author : maxwell
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-12-08 19:49 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bugs.webkit.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (bugs.webkit.org)
| boomskats wrote:
| So if I'm understanding this correctly: Apple still refuse to
| implement this PushManager interface in Safari, but because they
| don't have a public bug tracker, the WebKit Bugzilla is where the
| iOS PWA devs go to vent?
| om2 wrote:
| I'm not sure how you came to your conclusion but it doesn't
| seem justified by the info in this bug.
|
| It reflects Web Push being done in WebKit by Apple engineers
| (who use and pay attention to bugs.webkit.org). Apple doesn't
| usually comment on when/if WebKit features will ship in Safari
| but Apple engineers don't generally do stuff like this just for
| kicks.
| toxik wrote:
| It was recently fixed in WebKit, so I guess that's a step in
| the right direction? Though I doubt it's happening, lots of ads
| and spam via push notifications.
| schappim wrote:
| >> lots of ads and spam via push notifications
|
| Yup, including via apps distributed in the iOS App Store.
| Hell, even some of Apple's own apps do it!
| sloshnmosh wrote:
| Be VERY careful on accepting push notifications!
|
| There is a huge malvertising campaign targeting mobile users
| (especially Android) that tricks users into accepting push
| notifications with fake CAPTCHAs or fake media player buttons
| that push malicious ads and mobile malware and can even lead to
| botnet activity.
|
| The risk versus value is too high.
| sloshnmosh wrote:
| The software being used to push this malware is from Propeller
| ads and more recently AdMaven but is protected by Russian DDoS
| services.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| For the past couple years, every time I visit my mom I borrow
| her phone and unsubscribe her from a bunch of push notification
| spam senders. It is way too easy to allow these notifications.
|
| Reading the messages in that bug tracker from ecommerce sites,
| I really do wonder how many of their customers genuinely want
| pushes for coupons and ads vs how many just see a "you need to
| click some button to get on with things" and accept because
| that's just how computers seem to work for them.
|
| Then again, I'm perpetually cynical on these because I don't
| want push notifications for anything that doesn't actually
| warrant an inturruption to my daily life. I'm not 'settling for
| email' as one ecommerce marketer puts it. If you are sending
| your email content to notifications, then my notifications will
| just become another email inbox and lose their value.
| dylan-m wrote:
| It's a completely avoidable UI problem, too. There are two
| kinds of notifications:
|
| - Notifications while I am actively using a thing - for
| example, "your upload is finished," or "."
|
| - Push notifications from some website I looked at once and
| accidentally allowed notifications.
|
| Browsers keep treating these as if they're the same thing.
| Firefox doesn't make any effort to separate them - you get
| the same "allow notifications" banner whether it's for push
| notifications or the plain old notifications API
| (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/Notificatio... /
| https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1192458).
|
| But they're obviously different. I don't _want_ to disallow
| notifications for every website I interact with, but if you
| aren 't telling me what kind of notifications these are, I
| don't really have much to work with here.
| tata71 wrote:
| Assume you don't want them, unless your usecase requires
| them?
| SahAssar wrote:
| Seems like the news here is that it was reopened on 2021-09-30
| after another issue and patch landed here:
| https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231008
|
| From my reading that patch does not implement the whole thing,
| but rather a part of it, but I'm not familiar with webkit source,
| so I might be wrong and the rest of the implementation is in
| platform code.
|
| Anyway it's nice to see any progress on this since it is one of
| the most requested features.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| > If apple opts into WebPush this will cut into its AppStore
| revenue eventually.
| rektide wrote:
| Progress I'd like to see, a toggle to deny all push notification
| requests... and the modal that precedes the permission request.
|
| Alas, since asking for push notification permissions requires a
| user gesture, it wouldn't actually keep 1/6th the pages in the
| world from opening a spammy "can we notify you" box, which,
| should you hit yes, THEN opens the permissions. "Oh too many
| pages are asking for permissions..." "I know, let's make the page
| have to ask for permission to ask permission" :unicode-squirt-
| gun: :head:
|
| IMO the whole permissions experience on the web is wrong/crap.
| The browsers all knew that unless asking for permissions brought
| up big bold obnoxious browser prompts, many many users would
| simply not have any idea the page was even asking. But that got
| to be out of hand, so then we had to make asking for permissions
| require a click or interaction, need a "use gesture" to kick off.
|
| IMO we've failed by trying to serve everyone. That we are too
| afraid to make interfaces for good/advanced users is a tragedy.
| We insist on making only blunted instrument. So the whole
| experience is such crap.
|
| Ideally there'd be a little permission requests icon with a
| number by it, or something in the awesome-bar/address-bar that
| shows: hey, I can do these things. Enable me if you want. Rather
| than modal & bold, a transactional thing, the page is just
| ambiently broadcasting what permissions it's happy to make use
| of. Users can selectively opt in/out whenever they feel like it.
| Yeah this site has been good, let me subscribe to their feed, let
| me add notifications. Oh this site can use my gyros/compass?
| Cool, I'll try that. Rather than the page making a request &
| expecting an answer, I just want the page to ambiently have
| requests open, the user not to be prompted but to have some means
| of checking what's ambiently available, opting in. Yes, many
| users would simply never know. Perhaps we need a bifurcated
| experience, options in our browers, browsers built for more
| discerning users: something we haven't dared do in a long long
| time. But by compare the current model of permissions is
| aggressively crappy & a huge attention hog. Simply being able to
| turn them off would be a help, but we'd still have to suffer the
| same egrious visual spam that stupid user-gesture requirements
| have wrought anyways. What a fuck up, what an awful local minima
| we're trapped in.
| kall wrote:
| FYI in Safari desktop, which supports web push, you can turn
| deny all requests. The same thing works for the other
| permission types as well.
| als0 wrote:
| One of the key blockers to a good PWA experience on iOS.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| I'm a big supporter of PWAs, but I don't think push
| notifications add all that much value for most regular apps
| much less PWAs. However, I do appreciate that the apps need to
| request permission to send notifications as opposed to regular
| apps which can send them unless explicitly denied permission.
| johne20 wrote:
| I can say we (roomlio.com) really miss not having push
| notifications on iOS for our chat PWA. Just presenting that
| as one use case where I believe push notifications would add
| value by notifying users of new chat messages.
| nathancahill wrote:
| > regular apps which can send them unless explicitly denied
| permission
|
| That's not true at all. On iOS at least.
| kerryritter wrote:
| Anecdotally, every client that rejected a PWA approach has
| been due to insisting on push notifications. These apps are
| typically internal employee apps and the push notifications
| are important alerts that they do not want lost in the
| shuffle of emails.
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(page generated 2021-12-08 23:02 UTC)