[HN Gopher] Consider Disabling Browser Push Notifications on Fam...
___________________________________________________________________
Consider Disabling Browser Push Notifications on Family and Friends
Devices
Author : lloydatkinson
Score : 153 points
Date : 2022-12-01 10:36 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lloydatkinson.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lloydatkinson.net)
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Would rather install Firefox + uBlock Origin and block
| notifications per default.
|
| >I have never seen them used for any legitimate or useful purpose
|
| At work.
|
| If you use web-based email like office.com/outlook.com/gmail.com
|
| If you use MS Teams and/or Slack in a browser
|
| you want to have notifications on :)
| ilyt wrote:
| Oh damn, that makes me remember one weird event, my tech
| illiterate mum told me "did you heard queen died?" like... 3
| months before that actually happened coz she accidentally
| subscribed to some random garbage on their phone and most likely
| assumed some clickbait header is actual news...
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Google Fi Messages uses push notifications and it's one of the
| few things that makes me really, really wish iPadOS had web push
| support. (I already have a SIM in my iPad, I just need to use a
| webapp to text or call.)
|
| Otherwise, completely agree. I've already had to clean out
| notification permissions from multiple people who were getting
| insidious amounts of web push spam. Nobody knows how to manage
| their notification permissions on Chrome, and web push popups
| themselves aren't great at telling you how to disable unwanted
| ones. I suppose this is why every hostile ad site begs you for
| web push permissions nowadays.
|
| Related gripe: websites that ask for location before you even
| have a chance to know why they need it.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| The author should include in their own article: "watch out for
| bad grammar" which makes anything that does get past preferences
| and UBO seem even worse -
|
| "Your computer is infected with dangerous viruses." "Your bank
| account has been compromised." "System Is At Risk" "Your might
| loose your data!"
| lzooz wrote:
| I'm family of myself which is why I also disable push
| notifications always. Thankfully Apple does the right thing and
| doesn's support them at all.
| wruza wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better if ios could control notifications on
| both global and per-site basis?
| lzooz wrote:
| As long as the default is to globally block and that enabling
| for a single site is as cumbersome as possible, that's okay.
| wruza wrote:
| Personally I'd like to run a server that could send
| notifications to me and to other people who would like to
| join this party. It is a valid use case and making it as
| cumbersome as possible feels wrong (depending on what it
| means of course).
|
| Though I agree that it would be good to not turn it on by
| ok-clicking like our parents always do. "aA -> turn on"
| would be enough, popups definitely banned.
| Tepix wrote:
| That's what all browsers do and i'm sure mobile safari will
| do it too once the feature arrives.
| pull_my_finger wrote:
| Sorry to be the bearer of bad news
| https://webkit.org/blog/13399/webkit-features-in-safari-16-1...
| mavhc wrote:
| Thankfully Apple does the right thing and doesn't allow anyone
| to use knives in their kitchen
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Being in IT support, a bit above tier one, we got lots of these.
|
| We have endpoint protection of course, but they do not react to
| this of course as it is not real.
|
| But you can turn it off in Chrome, Edge and Firefox over GPO or
| Intune policy. And/or push out ublock origin too :) if customer
| allows/wants.
| Markoff wrote:
| That is what I do when I have once a year father's/mother's phone
| in hand and I see notification bar flooded with crap
| notifications from various apps, not just browser. As for
| desktop, they should have adblockers which should take care of it
| hopefully.
| danuker wrote:
| I installed Linux (Manjaro), and the problems are confined to
| the browser (and then handled by uBlock Origin). But my parents
| only use the computer for browsing and very rarely for opening
| documents.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Unfortunately I have seen the notification prompts appear even
| with ad blockers installed
| pleb_nz wrote:
| There are cases.
|
| But I prefer my browser to act as a sandbox. Push notifications
| are disabled and I don't get any requests to allow on any device
| I use.
|
| But then I don't like notifications in general even from apps and
| only have f exceptions for Telegram direct messages/sms and
| calendars.
|
| If I want to know if I have an email or some app has she news for
| me, it can wait until I make time to go have a look.
|
| I use devices to work and the last thing I want is distractions
| from notifications as much as possible. I also feel less
| overwhelmed and freer when exposed to less notifications.
| JTbane wrote:
| Browser push notifications give me the same vibe as the malware
| toolbars and add-ons of old.
| Operative0198 wrote:
| Wrong solution to the problem.
|
| Let's be honest here, they are only getting those notifications
| because they visited some random shady website and clicked on
| "allow" notifications as they would click the "accept" cookies
| button; to hide the nag.
|
| Installing uBlock or setting up ad-blocking DNS for your friends
| should cut out 99.9% of phishing and spam.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Is Toms Hardware considered "shady"?
| Operative0198 wrote:
| Can't find that reference in the article. Are you sure you
| got that right?
| scarface74 wrote:
| Toms Hardware does or at least did use web notifications
| for advertising. I believe PCWorld did also.
| Operative0198 wrote:
| Oh okay. Missed the joke. Killing off the notifications
| feature on the account of a few rogue actors doesn't seem
| like a reasonable measure.
|
| Though ironically even if we are to take your example, I
| would consider advertising in this scenario to be
| harmless compared to receiving malicious phishing links
| in your notifications. I believe those 2 websites would
| never stoop that low.
| scarface74 wrote:
| They are mostly rogue actors. Almost everyone on the
| internet tries to monetize via advertising at every
| opportunity.
|
| And _they_ may not purposefully stoop that low. But there
| are most likely using a third party ad network.
| everydaypanos wrote:
| > Your non-technical family members and friends will likely fall
| for these at some point. For their sake, disable them.
|
| As the famous proverb says "give a man a fish and you feed him
| for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".
| The best way to "fix" phishing attacks and malware is by making
| people more "technical". The only way to eliminate these
| phenomena is by educating people about what a Push Notification
| really is and that you simply don't have to click it.
|
| The Web needs to be a competitive platform for apps next to the
| closed and "gated" App Stores. I think that we should not dumb
| down web browsers to simple page viewers.
| scarface74 wrote:
| How has that worked out for the past four decades?
| ufmace wrote:
| I've been around the tech world for a few decades. This
| sentiment has often been repeated about things like this, but I
| no longer believe that it's viable. The tech world is just too
| fast-moving, which means there's not really any such thing as
| "education". If you manage to teach someone something, it'll
| probably be out of date in a year or two, if not less. You have
| to pay attention to the latest trends all the time to really be
| knowledgeable about it. That just isn't going to happen.
| macNchz wrote:
| I've managed to get my parents to be suspicious about emails
| and phone calls, to forward me anything they're unsure of, to
| reply to any communications purporting to be from their
| financial institutions by calling back with the number on their
| card or statement, to install updates as soon as they become
| available, to use unique passwords for everything and so
| on....but I still regularly find malicious extensions installed
| on their browsers and homepages set to some fake version of
| Google.
|
| I continue to try to educate, but nowadays I make sure they
| always have ad blockers installed (I believe most of the tricks
| they fall for stem from malicious ads) and I try to lock things
| down and disable features where it makes sense. I dislike the
| locked down world of iOS and what has become of MacOS, but I
| appreciate having it for devices they use. This is part of my
| job, I think about this stuff every day and I still worry I
| can't keep up, so I can't really expect the same from them.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > The best way to "fix" phishing attacks and malware is by
| making people more "technical".
|
| I've been trying to do this for 25 years. It has yet to be
| successful. Especially since the vectors of attack change
| constantly.
|
| > The Web needs to be a competitive platform for apps next to
| the closed and "gated" App Stores. I think that we should not
| dumb down web browsers to simple page viewers.
|
| Disagree 100%. With native(ish) apps at least I can do things
| like block internet access if I don't want them to "phone
| home". I can also downgrade (or not upgrade) them if they push
| regressive "updates". Web apps take all control away from the
| user. We need ways of running whatever we want on mobile. But
| using web apps as a workaround is a cure that's worse than the
| disease.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Many people are not ever going to 'be more technical.'
|
| Any plan now and going forward has to take this reality into
| account. Not blame the victim.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Yes, that was a pretty outlandish suggestion.
| babypuncher wrote:
| The first thing I do when setting up a new browser is to
| permanently disable this feature.
|
| The feature had potential, but the fact that websites can ask you
| to enable push notifications unprompted renders it far more
| irritating than useful.
| mozman wrote:
| Push notifications are a detriment to society. All notifications
| are always blocked and my browser is blocked by my OS.
|
| I always "poll" data mentally, I find this to be crucial to me
| maintaining control over my devices and not allowing them to
| control me.
| Tepix wrote:
| When your phone rings, it's a push notification of sorts. It is
| a _real_ push notification if it 's an OTP call.
|
| Most people are not ok with missing incoming calls.
| intrasight wrote:
| The phone app is the only one which I allow to have "push
| notifications". And they can be disabled. It's also the only
| one that I can think of that allows me to selectively enable
| based upon the sender (iOS user here).
| samb1729 wrote:
| I believe you can also allow Messages notifications in Do
| Not Disturb mode for your favourite contacts, if that's
| desirable for you
| fmajid wrote:
| "What, someone rings you like a valet, and you rush to
| answer?"-- French playwright Sacha Guitry, about the
| telephone.
|
| You just described why millennials consider phone calls
| incredibly disruptive and rude (and I entirely agree with
| them despite being a Gen-Xer).
| SavageBeast wrote:
| Being pretty much a 100% Chrome user, I've yet to click "Allow"
| when a site wanted to notify/spam/inundate me with shit from sub-
| companies or worse yet proxy spam me from paying 3rd parties
| because "well, you did opt in sir". The opt in popup box might as
| well read: "Are you an idiot? YES|MAYBE".
|
| Not one time have I allowed it ever in all these years and I'm
| shocked anyone else allows it at all too. Not having considered
| it before but I'm really surprised this tech is on by default or
| even exists at all. It may have some neat IOT use cases but IOT
| has about a billion other notification options for
| machine/machine communications that are better. Thats the best I
| can do in terms of trying to argue theres a good aspect of the
| functionality.
|
| But what about Gmail you say? Well, I personally don't use the
| web interface anyhow opting instead for a nice/superior
| experience from a local client but IIRC the tab starts blinking
| when theres new mail and the number in the title bar changes.
|
| Even LinkedIn and its simple blue dot on the title of the tab is
| sufficient for me to know theres new activity there if I want to
| bother looking (ooooh loooook - a guy I know knows a guy that
| posted a virtue signaling meme regarding a supposedly socially
| relevant topic that companies pretend to be concerned about - I
| MUST KNOW ABOUT THIS IMMEDIATELY!).
|
| Now, on to changing browser and OS notifications on all 4 home
| systems to my preferences this morning. I didn't realize how much
| the hubris of bugging me with stupid crap annoyed me until this
| prompted me to consider it. Thanks OP!
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Interesting. I'm in the same boat I never actually pressed
| allow, but somehow I never actually thought about disabling it
| either. I'm going to do that on my moms laptop as well when I
| get the chance.
| simion314 wrote:
| I use WhatsApp and the Android Messages web versions, probably
| i am a special case due to my bad eyes I prefer my KDE
| accessibility features and typing on a real keyboard over a
| smartphone.
| [deleted]
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| > I'm shocked anyone else allows it at all too
|
| I was too! But then like I mentioned with UX dark patterns
| encouraging users to click by making them believe they _have_
| to click it, it 's perhaps not as surprising. Non-technical
| users are already conditioned to click OK or Yes to anything
| that appears on their screen without reading it.
|
| Glad you found the advice useful!
| cronix wrote:
| I don't like this title, even though the article doesn't really
| mention the logistics. It implies for you to go and muck with
| someone else's device. I'd rather inform them and let them make
| up their own minds. I can't tell you how pissed I'd be if someone
| changed a setting on my phone without consent, regardless of how
| well intentioned they were.
| aeharding wrote:
| Some APIs need to be locked behind "add to home screen" starting
| with the notifications api.
| jasode wrote:
| Some HN/reddit threads recently mentioned Library Genesis so I
| visited with Chrome desktop web browser on mac and was surprised
| it caused a deceptive push notification. Screenshot:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/ZXxnM1G
|
| EDIT reply to: _> That ad must've been injected by the proxy you
| were using to access LibGen. _
|
| I just went to the top search result for "libgen" from google
| search result. It's possible they were trying a temporary
| monetization trial to take advantage of the Z-Library shutdown
| and that push notification is now gone. The other possibility is
| that the search result pointed to "libgen.ee" or "libgen.il"
| which apparently is a clone of Libgen (they call it "Library
| Genesis+") and it's the clone sites that have the push
| notifications. It's confusing to to people not familiar with it
| to know which is fake and which is real. (screenshot of google
| results: https://imgur.com/a/65Beo8H)
|
| On another side note, what's amazing is how that website got a
| push notification silently past Chrome's "Privacy and security"
| setting of _" Sites can ask to send notifications"_. There was
| never a _" Allow this site to send notification?"_ prompt. I
| wonder what Javascript trick they used to bypass Chrome's
| security.
| [deleted]
| arepublicadoceu wrote:
| > I just went to the top search result for "libgen" from google
| search result.
|
| Yeah, you should never use google for this.
|
| Protip: find the wikipedia article of your site of interest and
| bookmark it as a source of always up to date urls. Conversely,
| just use alternative search engines like duckduckgo and/or
| brave search.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > find the wikipedia article of your site of interest and
| bookmark it as a source of always up to date urls.
|
| I don't recommend relying on Wikipedia as a source of up-to-
| date anything.
| FabHK wrote:
| Well, in this and many similar cases it works significantly
| better than google. What would you recommend to find a
| current URL of Libgen or Sci-Hub?
| notRobot wrote:
| That ad must've been injected by the proxy you were using to
| access LibGen. uBlock Origin detects no ads, malware or
| trackers on https://libgen.is/ for me.
| intrasight wrote:
| I will rephrase as: "Consider disabling push
| notifications on your device and on family and friends devices"
|
| because browser vs native should make no difference, right? But
| when said that way, you see how absurd is the statement as a
| generate guide. This would be a full-time job to a) convince
| people not to get notifications and b) change their settings.
|
| Now personally, I have disabled all native push notifications or
| at best have them sent to the "Notification Center". And after
| seeing my GF bothered by so many notifications, I showed her how
| to disable them. Everyone else is on their own.
| markandrewj wrote:
| You have the ability to disable just browser push
| notifications, at least for Android. I actually find
| notifications useful, but they can quickly become useless if
| you are receiving a lot of irrelevant notifications. If you
| disable all notifications on Android, you wont get things like
| calendar reminders.
|
| Although it can be useful for some web applications, I kind of
| wish that push notifications were not added to browsers. Most
| often they are just abused to spam users. The pop-up you get
| while going to pages asking you to allow push notifications is
| also annoying. I have started to disable notifications in all
| the browsers I use on mobile and desktop.
| Tepix wrote:
| Browser push notifications on mobile have the potential to make
| many native apps superfluous - use PWAs (progressive web apps)
| instead.
|
| According to Apple it'll finally arrive on iOS 16.x on Mobile
| Safari in 2023.
|
| It would be a shame if the feature becomes unusable for other
| reasons after being delayed for so long.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So if Apple is the only reason that PWAs aren't mainstream, why
| do most companies have web apps, iOS apps and Android apps
| instead of just telling Android users to go to the web?
| sdfhbdf wrote:
| Well I think the power usage (AFAIK the website needs to
| register a service worker working in the background) and abuse
| potential were the main concerns of Apple for not implementing
| it earlier.
|
| I am wondering what the limitations are going to be.
|
| As I understand Apple used to be the gatekeeper of all push
| notifications (App Store, APNS) but with enabling push
| notifications on the em web it might open the floodgates. Could
| be a thing, could be problematic.
| notatoad wrote:
| consider not messing with people's computers without their
| permission.
|
| there's legitimate uses for browser notifications. messaging apps
| like slack and discord, calendars, email clients, etc. some
| browser games. some buy/sell platforms. notifications serve a
| purpose. if you understand the consequences and want to turn them
| off on your computer, then go ahead.
|
| but in my experience well-meaning young folks turning things off
| on other people's computers is a big part of why some people
| don't trust their computers, or think they're bad at computers.
| they're talking to a friend and find out that their friend's
| computer gives them a little notification every time they get an
| email, and they don't understand why their computer doesn't do
| that. and the first conclusion they come it is that they just
| don't know how to use the computer properly. meanwhile they know
| how to use their computer perfectly fine, but some grandson has
| gone through the settings and turned off half the things their
| computer does.
| angry_octet wrote:
| I've done some victim support for people who have lost their
| life's savings to a phishing scam. If only they had someone
| helping them disable these things, install ad blockers, explain
| caller ID spoofing etc.
|
| I wish you could completely block URLs and phone numbers from
| SMS -- it's by far the most dangerous vector. People get a text
| from their bank, the tax agency, their medical fund, fedex. It
| warns them of a problem on their accounts and they leap into
| action like Pavlov's dog, clicking the link, calling the
| number. The nice man on the other end listens and says "we need
| to secure your accounts, but before we continue I need to do a
| full ID check. Can we start with the current balance of your
| account? Very good. And your full name and DOB? Okay, just
| waiting for the system, a bit slow today ha ha. Now we will be
| sending you a security prompt by SMS to verify you. We take
| security very seriously here...".
| fmajid wrote:
| We need more distractions and interruptions getting in the way of
| flow like we need a hole in the head (something push
| notifications do a great work simulating, as far as impact to
| your productivity is concerned).
| nevi-me wrote:
| I'm at my mom's place, I had never thought of turning them all
| off. I think I should outright disable Chrome on Android
| notifications, as I now can't think of a reason why she should
| get notifications.
|
| She's been spammed by all sorts of nonsense from tabloids and
| scams.
|
| > In the same way that e-mail spam filtering works, so should
| browser push notification spam filtering. If you don't implement
| this, you are complicit in the continued abuse of your users.
|
| I can't remember as I haven't worked on notifications in years,
| are the notifications not meant to be encrypted? Such that the
| browser vendor can't see the contents?
|
| With e-mail I understand and accept the message processing needed
| to identify if it's spam, but I'm wondering whether browser
| vendors (or more specifically, push servers) would today be able
| to intercept messages.
|
| Numerous services will allow messages to be sent via push
| notifications, wouldn't it cause issues if your browser vendor is
| now "reading your messages"?
|
| > If needing to filter browser push notifications for spam seems
| like a lot of work, then questions need answering about the value
| of the feature in the first place. Seriously, what is the value
| of this feature?
|
| I understood the feature as part of making PWAs able to replace
| the need for native apps. When browsers started supporting push
| notifications, I used the service to send public transit alerts
| to users who opted into them.
|
| > Were you pressured into it by ad companies? Why is the feature
| so open to abuse?
|
| Native apps can be removed from stores, and Google/Apple would (I
| assume) drive the lion share of notifications thorugh their
| servers, and can probably detect abusive behaviour more readily.
|
| With browsers, I'd again assume that it's harder, as one can use
| any service they'd like.
|
| Then what about Chromium where all the tracking stuff has been
| stripped out? Who would police that?
|
| Two possible solutions:
|
| 1. A blocklist is maintained, similarly to malicious websites.
| Don't know if flagging a website abusing notification marks it as
| malicious overall, but at least with malicious websites the user
| wouldn't even see the website.
|
| 2. If a user dismisses notifications and never opens them,
| perhaps the browser can take initiative and block them
| permanently.
|
| ----
|
| I'm responding mainly with experience of spam on family's phones,
| I fortunately don't have elderly family who use PCs.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| > are the notifications not meant to be encrypted? Such that
| the browser vendor can't see the contents?
|
| No, the Windows API's for showing the notification (or for any
| OS) are going to need to know the text to render and the image
| to display, which is information the browser will have to tell
| those API's.
|
| > send public transit alerts
|
| Probably the only legitimate use case I've heard but I've
| personally used apps from the transit companies for this.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > wouldn't it cause issues if your browser vendor is now
| "reading your messages"?
|
| This doesn't make sense. The browser sees everything that
| passes through the browser, by definition.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| To filter out spam notifications, the browser would need to
| forward notification contents to the vendor. The filtering
| can't be done on-device because that gives spammers direct
| access to the models.
| hedora wrote:
| This has been a solved problem for twenty years. Check out
| Thunderbird's spam filter.
| nevi-me wrote:
| I'm distinguishing between displaying contents of some
| payload vs actively tokenising and interpreting such content.
|
| If you set up an extension that blocks notifications with the
| word "vanilla", what the extension would be doing to act on
| that notification is what I regard as "reading your
| messages".
| scarface74 wrote:
| Apple's content blocking framework doesn't allow the
| extension maker to know what you browse. It sends a json
| file to Safari with regex expressions for Safari to block.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Push notifications are horrible. They're automatically one of the
| first things I disable.
| ack_inc wrote:
| The post says there are no legitimate use-cases for browser push
| notifications, but I disagree.
|
| I'm building a niche social media PWA (eschewing native apps to
| save time), and use browser push notifications to let my users
| know when someone has DM'ed them.
| paraknight wrote:
| First thing I did when I opened this thread is ctrl+f PWA. Glad
| you mentioned it even though your comment was so far down.
|
| The other big positive is that the closer PWAs are to native
| apps in functionality, the less of a stranglehold Apple and
| Google will have over app distribution.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| Here is one more: internal web apps.
|
| At one previous job, that supported vehicle registration for
| county clerks, there were enough situations where multiple
| users would "work" on the same vehicle registration that we had
| to let users know if some other user updated that particular
| record - rather than fail/error if that user presses submit
| "too late".
| Ruq wrote:
| Of course there are legitmate use-cases; I enable a few myself.
| BUT--I also know exactly where to go in my browser settings to
| edit my preferences, should I ever accidentally click "yes" on
| a bad prompt that starts blasting me with ads and phishing
| attempts.
|
| The thing is, many non-technical users don't even know where or
| how notifications really show, much less how to edit/remove
| them.
| rubymancer wrote:
| Same! I came here to comment this. I run a kink-based social
| media site, so the Google/Apple stores are a non-starter.
|
| Push notifs in a PWA get us about 90% of the functionality of a
| native app on Android and (finally) iOS.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| This is one of the very, very few cases when it makes sense.
| The problem is, everybody else is abusing it beyond
| imagination.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yeah, >90% of the uses are just pure abuse.
|
| Browsers should've really made it an user-initiated action.
| Something more akin to adding a site to your browser's
| bookmarks than what we have currently.
| spiffytech wrote:
| BoardGameArena uses push notifications to let players know it's
| their turn.
|
| I prefer running Slack in the browser, and I need to receive
| message notifications.
|
| Push notifications aren't any less useful to have in browsers
| than in native apps.
|
| Though I would like to see the prompt locked behind "add to
| home screen".
| kevinyew wrote:
| Sadly, boardgame arena also pushes advertising for new games
| and features through the notifications as well. I'm sure it's
| possible to disable specific categories, but it unfortunately
| undermines their value even more when otherwise legitimate
| sites still somewhat abuse push notifications.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Somewhat real-time chat with a human I'm talking to on purpose
| is the only legitimate use case I can think of and the only
| thing I enable any sort of push notification from at all, but
| even then, only from native apps. If the only reason this needs
| to be in a browser is saving time for the developer, that isn't
| a good enough reason for me as a user as long as other options
| exist that use native apps.
|
| Even to use this theoretically, though, I'd want the strict
| ability to control who can even send me a direct message. As it
| stands, the only thing I currently allow push notifications for
| are SMS and Signal, but the SMS texts are still overwhelming
| election spam from people who aren't even trying to spam me but
| have the wrong number for my mother or grandmother and bulk
| property buyers who claim they want to buy one of my houses. So
| I hope you plan to enable user-controllable proactive origin
| filtering ( _not_ after the fact user-by-user blocking).
| nevi-me wrote:
| >If the only reason this needs to be in a browser is saving
| time for the developer, that isn't a good enough reason for
| me as a user as long as other options exist that use native
| apps.
|
| Consider food delivery services (from the reastaurants). We
| actively order food directly from the reastaurant where
| possible, because Uber Eats charge more for the food and
| still charge "service" fees + delivery.
|
| I've just checked, and I have 7 (including Uber Eats) food
| and grocery delivery apps.
|
| It would be my preference if I dealt with a PWA instead of
| having to install many apps with varying quality. A
| notification of the status of my order is useful, and with
| the grocery apps, sometimes an item that I've ordered is out
| of stock, and I have a small window to take some action (if I
| hadn't chosen one when ordering).
| userbinator wrote:
| Another annoyance that totally disappears if you disable JS. In
| fact, except for perhaps the "I have never seen them used for any
| legitimate or useful purpose" point, the content of the article
| could be about JS. As a bonus, fake warnings _on the page_ may
| also disappear.
|
| I completely agree with the author about how hostile the "modern
| web" is. At least push notifications are dubious in value from
| the start, but unfortunatelY JS seems to be trying to replace
| built-in functionality of the browser like rendering static
| content.
| FabHK wrote:
| I've come across a site (on HN, I think) with content written
| in Markdown which used JavaScript to render Markdown to HTML in
| the client/browser. Why oh why?
|
| I like to disable JS, but these days virtual no site works
| without it (except HN, kudos!)
| delecti wrote:
| I understand the advice, but I don't agree they're _entirely_
| without purpose.
|
| > I have never seen them used for any legitimate or useful
| purpose
|
| That's definitely overblown. I've got a half-dozen enabled, and
| on re-reviewing that list, I still think they're legitimate. Upon
| checking mine, I've whitelisted Google Calendar, Gmail, Google
| Meet, Mattermost (work chat app), and Slack, and I want
| notifications enabled for all those things.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| I'm sure people out there do have some use cases, and as the
| screenshots in the guide show you can still manually turn on
| specific notifications.
|
| Personally I haven't had any use cases for them and they have
| only been a source of frustration.
| ilyt wrote:
| > That's definitely overblown. I've got a half-dozen enabled,
| and on re-reviewing that list, I still think they're
| legitimate. Upon checking mine, I've whitelisted Google
| Calendar, Gmail, Google Meet, Mattermost (work chat app), and
| Slack, and I want notifications enabled for all those things.
|
| Most of it are native apps tho ?
|
| The difference is that you install app explicitly for purpuse
| of doing that, vs "I accidentally clicked on website and now it
| sends crap to my feed" of average illiterate users.
| toastal wrote:
| They're mostly Electron, not native apps. My browser has
| extensions that help me with all of the tracking these apps
| are full of that are a hassle to patch in Electron apps (who
| know how Manifest v3 will affect Electron). Unless you have a
| FOSS TUI I can opt out of tracking, no thanks: I'll keep you
| in the browser in a pinned tab.
| delecti wrote:
| Native apps exist for most(all?) of those, I just prefer to
| use the website versions of all of those.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > Most of it are native apps tho ?
|
| I have a couple of clients I woke with so I prefer to isolate
| them by profile in browser...
| majani wrote:
| Exactly. I use mine to alert users of my poker site about
| tournaments. Many would lose money without these timely alerts
| niij wrote:
| "many" being gamblers or site operators ;)
| jholman wrote:
| Same: I understand the advice, but it's trivial to find cases
| where it's useful.
|
| I have three enabled. One is for a past side-hustle, but the
| others are messages.android.com and messages.google.com .
| Definitely keeping both of those, even if/when I finally mostly
| depart the google ecosystem.
| theamk wrote:
| And that's fine, the article only disables pop-ups that prompt
| to enable notifications. For those few websites which really
| matter, you can explicitly click on "shield" icon and enable
| it.
|
| The key idea is that enabling notification should be an
| explicit actions, and have more consent than a single click.
| celtain wrote:
| Right, a more reasonable argument would be just that the risks
| outweigh the benefits for some users, especially if they aren't
| currently using notifications on any legitimate sites.
| FabHK wrote:
| Most of these would work as well or better with a native
| application, no?
| delecti wrote:
| Certainly for some people. I just prefer the tradeoff of
| carefully curating my taskbar at the expense of my tab list.
|
| I (over)use the keyboard shortcut of windows key+# (so win+1
| switches the focus to the first application icon on the
| taskbar, win+2 the second, etc), and I've got muscle memory
| of which applications are pinned to each place. Plus, I've
| already got the muscle memory of how to get to the various
| websites I keep open.
| localhost wrote:
| I don't have notifications / alerts for anything besides family
| trying to contact me. For everything else, I poll. This has the
| benefit of allowing me to focus on what I'm doing (which
| sometimes requires looking things up in a browser) without
| being interrupted while doing so.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| > I understand the advice, but I don't agree they're entirely
| without purpose.
|
| [...]
|
| > I've got a half-dozen enabled[...]
|
| That's fine for you, a purveyor of tech news. For almost
| everyone else, they are a means to spam and false malware
| notifications.
|
| Our company provides services to clients who rely on computers
| but aren't necessarily computer experts. The only instances of
| browser notifications that I've seen (on client machines) are
| those I just described. In fact, yours is the first instance of
| someone appreciating them that I've encountered.
|
| No shade intended. I just don't think their benefit outweighs
| their abuse.
| delecti wrote:
| > I just don't think their benefit outweighs their abuse.
|
| TFA said they're without purpose, I said I disagree. You're
| now saying their abuse outweighs their benefit, which is a
| separate topic, and is more subjective. I'm not sure I
| entirely agree, but I could definitely see a case for that.
| claytongulick wrote:
| I think that you are discarding a massive positive use case,
| PWAs.
|
| We rely on them extensively for basic notification
| functionality in healthcare applications.
|
| We literally send out alerts that save people's lives using
| web push notifications, so I think it's a bit cavalier to
| dismiss them entirely.
|
| I do agree that it would be nice if the were restricted a bit
| more, perhaps to installed PWAs of some sort.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > We literally send out alerts that save people's lives
| using web push notifications
|
| Is that HIPAA compliant? What happens when
| Google/Apple/whoever goes down (does happen!), do patients
| die?
| claytongulick wrote:
| Good questions!
|
| Yes, the alert is a link to an authenticated PWA, no PHI
| is sent in a message.
|
| As far as push server failure, we also have SMS
| notifications as fallback.
| nickphx wrote:
| You can encrypt the contents or use the notification as a
| signal to trigger the service worker to retrieve
| notification data separately.
| seydor wrote:
| As opposed to app notifications?
|
| Anyway people never click allow on those so they might as well be
| useless. I prefer to make my own notification system. If the user
| wants it , they leave the tab in the background , much like how i
| leave gmail.
|
| Aren't they already a privacy nightmare being so centralized?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Anyway people never click allow on those so they might as
| well be useless.
|
| They _do_ , by accident. And then wonder why the fuck they keep
| getting spam push messages and how to turn it off. Which is why
| the right thing to do is turn them off completely for non-
| technical friends and family. Likelihood of harm is near-zero
| (as you note, basically no-one wants these) and, at the very
| least, it saves them from distracting, useless pop-up dialogs.
| bmk44 wrote:
| I volunteer at a church by helping out with some basic IT issues
| from time to time. I recently had to disable Chrome browser
| notifications on one of their PCs because the McAffee anti-virus
| notifications just wouldn't stop. I thought I had already
| uninstalled the actual McAffee desktop software but I guess it
| embedded itself into the chrome browser somehow too.
|
| On a related note, I wish Chrome had an easy way to permanently
| say "don't ask again" (on a site-by-site basis) to the "Do you
| want to login with a google account?" popup that so many sites
| have nowadays.
| Torlan wrote:
| Are these the same people who use billion dollar corporations
| like Twitter just for receiving another type of notification from
| the same sources instead of native way?
| donkeyd wrote:
| Another interesting thing I found out is that Chrome seems to
| store pretty much all of these notifications, indefinitely, on
| the filesystem. It's a great source for reading messages someone
| has received on Whatsapp/Telegram web clients and things like
| that.
| throwingrocks wrote:
| Does this person work for Apple?
|
| I love how people here are simultaneously for pushing the web
| platform forward and also for holding it back.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| No, don't be ridiculous. Having rescued several people from the
| described situations I wrote this because because it's an
| abused feature.
|
| If pushing the web forward is whatever the hell that assortment
| of notifications is at the top of the article, I'm all for
| holding it back.
| my123 wrote:
| Apple was right in restricting web notifications in the first
| place. The sad story is that they're abused way too much. :/
|
| Now about how to fix that is an interesting question...
| _jal wrote:
| How does a poorly thought out spam channel "push the web
| platform forward"?
|
| I don't understand why some people seem to believe anything
| that adds complexity is positive. Removing bad features is a
| good thing!
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Just like making all popups disabled by default, so should
| these user harassing notification prompts.
| KevinGlass wrote:
| This feature should never have existed. I used to work in a
| computer repair shop and saw hundreds of people with spam,
| scams, and malicious content piped directly to their computer.
| Most people have no idea how to make it stop, have no idea
| where it came from, but are aware it's happening and hate it.
|
| Browser push is probably close to 100% malicious or ads at this
| point. It's directly enabled scammers to steal 10s of millions
| of dollars.
|
| If Google came out with a feature that just stole $50 of iTunes
| gift cards from your granny no one would want it. That was
| browser push is at this point.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Yes, these types of stories are incredibly common
| unfortunately. The advice here should be taken on board by
| any repair shop.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| >This feature should never have existed
|
| The feature is needed for browser based mail, chat, calendar,
| meetings etc like office.com, Teams, Slack
|
| Yes, they all have native apps but some like to use web
| versions or being logged in to different accounts
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The less-than-1% of Web push message volume that is desired
| and helpful is a no-brainer sacrifice to get rid of the
| 99+% that's unwanted, accidentally-enabled spam.
|
| Of course, short of just getting rid of it, we could make
| it like RSS where there's just a little icon and you have
| to choose to engage with it to use it, otherwise you won't
| even realize it's there. But I expect that amounts to the
| same thing, and the feature'd be dead before long, being
| too much effort to keep up for something that nearly no-one
| would both know is there and want to use. Probably usage
| levels similar to FTP in the browser, and that got axed.
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