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Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

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Re: Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

#11

Post by kelnos »

I allow for chat webapps and GCalendar, and deny for everything else, even email. I don't trust any other site not to abuse them, and even if I did, there isn't anything else that would warrant an immediate interruption.

Now, if you're looking for arguments whether or not you should implement them for a user-facing webapp based on a sampling of HN readers' behavior, my guess is we're not really all that representative. If you think any of your users might find them useful, go ahead and implement them.

One caveat, though: most (all?) random websites that want to give me notifications do so by just brazenly requesting permission from the browser. I would prefer if there was a link/button on the website itself that I could use to opt-in (which would trigger the permissions dialog). It just feels sketchy when random websites request notification access (or location access, for that matter), without first presenting me a case for why they want it.

Re: Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

#12

Post by mikestew »

jsjohnst wrote: post #6
mikestew wrote: post #4

Whatever the setting is for “don’t you EVER pop a browser-originated notification. Don’t even ASK.” in macOS, I have that turned on.

I so wish I knew what that setting was. Guess I could’ve googled it in the time I’ve written this reply.

sigh You're going to exploit my alpha geek to make me go look and prove I know how to do it, aren't you? :-)

System Preferences/Notifications/Safari. There's a None option. Then Safari/Preferences/Notifications/Uncheck "Allow websites to ask for permission..." IIRC, I've not seen any mention of notifications in Safari since.

Re: Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

#14

Post by ramphastidae »

I deny them 100% of the time (with one forthcoming exception). It's always spammy or click-bait sites that ask permission for push notifications, for no other reason than to push their content even more.

The only time I enabled them was when using the browser-based versions of Hipchat (and then Slack), as receiving notifications about incoming messages was actually useful to me.

Re: Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

#17

Post by jsjohnst »

mikestew wrote: post #12
jsjohnst wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I so wish I knew what that setting was. Guess I could’ve googled it in the time I’ve written this reply.

sigh You're going to exploit my alpha geek to make me go look and prove I know how to do it, aren't you? :-) System Preferences/Notifications/Safari. There's a None option. Then Safari/Preferences/Notifications/Uncheck "Allow websites to ask for permission..." IIRC, I've not seen any mention of notifications in Safari since.

Just toggled off the “allow websites to ask for permission...” setting in Safari/Preferences/Websites/Notifications. Thanks! Lazy web for the win!

Re: Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

#18

Post by CSDude »

People invented pop-up blockers for a reason, browser notifications are only used by intrusive spammy web-sites, similar to old pop-ups that wants to sell you Viagra or claiming you are the 1 millionth user. I only allow work related ones, like Gitlab or Slack.

Re: Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

#19

Post by balladeer »

ramphastidae wrote: post #14

I deny them 100% of the time (with one forthcoming exception). It's always spammy or click-bait sites that ask permission for push notifications, for no other reason than to push their content even more. The only time I enabled them was when using the browser-based versions of Hipchat (and then Slack), as receiving notifications about incoming messages was actually useful to me.

Citi bank (India) asks all the time, so does almost every Google web app. Some other offenders are ones like movie/event booking site like BookMyShow. But BMS are such shady spammers that I had to create specific filters to receive only booking confirmation in my mailbox. I had created +bms@gmail.com and the next day my spam label count was in triple digit. ICICI Bank does, HSBC India does and I would like to add that these two are excellent spammers too. I suspect HSVC India's "unsubscribe" link results in an response "LOL" internally, or it just points to a static content that just shows "Successfully unsubscribed".

Anyway, the only time I need notification is when I am chatting with tech/customer support and I move to other tabs/windows in between.

I guess pretty much all the sites are inching towards being spammy and click-bait now, at least the ones of major companies.

Re: Ask HN: Are browser notifications user-hostile?

#20

Post by pubb »

Notifications can be useful for web apps. A good rule of thumb is to only ask for permission when the user interacts with your app. For example, I ask for permission when the user clicks a button with the text "Enable Push Notifications" on the user settings screen. Then I let the user choose what kind of notifications they'd like to receive - typically CRUD actions for entities that the user cares about.
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