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Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

blog.nightly.mozilla.org

121–130 of 268 posts

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#121
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but you need telemetry to find out how users react to abusive notifications and how they interact with websites where they do genuinely want notifications from. You can't just guess that.

>you need telemetry to find out how users react to abusive notifications You need telemetry to find out how users react to abusive notifications? Wow. I know that A/B testing is in vogue, but can’t they just use some common sense? People despise abusive notification prompts. People despise abusive location prompts. People despised abusive popups to the point that every browser blocks them and websites started emulati…

When is a notification prompt abusive? What rule do you need to distinguish a non-abusive prompt (for example a chat program wanting the ability to notify you or a GPS-related map on a website) vs an abusive prompt (newswebsite wanting to spam you or a tracking tool using GPS).

Common sense doesn't work here because everyone has a different perception of when these prompts become abusive or unwanted. Mozilla uses the data collected to determine how they can establish a rule to distinguish between abusive prompts and non-abusive prompts.

How users react to them is a good indicator if the prompt was abusive or not, most people will decline abusive prompts and accept good ones.

A simple "wait until first DOM interaction" will likely be not sufficient since a simple click on a text would then create the prompt. With more data you can determine a better rule.

That people despise these prompts is fairly obvious and exactly why Mozilla is collecting the data; they want to help people by establishing a good common ground rule for these notifications to be automatically blocked.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#122
In my opinion, notifications are poor UI solution:

- they distract attention

- they obstruct content below

- they disappear quickly

Also this allows the site to monitor whether user's computer is on or off even if all the tabs with the site are closed.

In Windows XP the way for an app to ask for user's attention was to highlight app's button on the taskbar (it also could flash several times which I never liked). While this is a little bit distracting too, it is still much better than Android-style notifications. With Windows XP, you can switch to the app when you have time.

Browser push notifications were designed with interests of developers in mind, not with interests of users.

A better solution might be to highlight the tab that needs user's attention and highlight browser's button on the taskbar.

On the other side, Android-style, annoying notifications might be easier to notice and understand for users who don't understand computers well.

I think Firefox devs should also consider switching from Android-style distracting notifications to time-tested solution from Windows XP. I don't think the ideas from the article will work.

For example, they suggest to show an icon in the address bar but there are already too much icons and users might not notice it. And if you allow to show permission popup only after click, then sites will show it after you click anything.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#123
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I opened a medium post the other day from my phone that did all this stuff. It was amazing - there was a bar up the top asking me to install the medium app. Then another bar below that asking me to subscribe to the author or something. Then a call-to-action pop-over on the bottom of the screen asking me to join a mailing list or something. Only about 1/4 of my phone screen was left displaying the content - which wasn…

> I can never tell if websites don't know how many people get turned away by how awful their websites are, or if they know but figure its a good deal. Having been told to implement aggressive exit-intent overlays on sites: I'm pretty sure it's the latter. A substantial amount of people don't bounce if you throw an annoying "do you really not want to know this secret?" overlay at them with an option saying something l…

My favourite thing about using 1Password to store my credit-card details is the number of times I've gone to pay, started moving my mouse to the 1Password button, and the exit-intent fires and gives me a discount I wasn't expecting.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#125
post #62

This “feature” is abused terribly around the web. For every site with useful notifications like gmail, there are 10 which misuse it. Yesterday I had the misfortune of misclicking on the prompt from a website. I started getting notifications like “YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH A VIRUS”. Turning off notifications for that website took at least 4 clicks through Chrome settings. Good to know there is a setting to turn i…

I think the bad thing is not telemetry itself but the fact that it is silently enabled by default instead of asking the user whether they agree to it. Make it voluntary and there would be no problems at all. I didn't ask for this feature.

Also, one doesn't need telemetry to notice how notifications are abused on the web. You can just start a browser, visit top 1000 popular sites and count how many of them show the popup.

Also, it seems like everyone tries to abuse notifications. For example, Youtube app shows a notification when the channel you are subscribed to releases a new video. Is it so urgent, that you need to distract the user? They could show this information when the user opens the app.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#126
post #62

This “feature” is abused terribly around the web. For every site with useful notifications like gmail, there are 10 which misuse it. Yesterday I had the misfortune of misclicking on the prompt from a website. I started getting notifications like “YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH A VIRUS”. Turning off notifications for that website took at least 4 clicks through Chrome settings. Good to know there is a setting to turn i…

>Turning off notifications for that website took at least 4 clicks through Chrome settings.

It's actually just three clicks, and you can do so from the page itself. No need to go into settings.

Click the Lock icon left of the omnibar. On pages that request notification permissions (eg. reddit), you'll see a toggle for it. Along with any other permissions requested.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#127
post #62

This “feature” is abused terribly around the web. For every site with useful notifications like gmail, there are 10 which misuse it. Yesterday I had the misfortune of misclicking on the prompt from a website. I started getting notifications like “YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH A VIRUS”. Turning off notifications for that website took at least 4 clicks through Chrome settings. Good to know there is a setting to turn i…

>Turning off notifications for that website took at least 4 clicks through Chrome settings. It's actually just three clicks, and you can do so from the page itself. No need to go into settings. Click the Lock icon left of the omnibar. On pages that request notification permissions (eg. reddit), you'll see a toggle for it. Along with any other permissions requested.

But you have to make only one click to agree to the notifications.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed completely. - Why are dialogs still a thing? - Why is stealing focus still a thing? Browser makers, operating system manufacturers: Stop it. Dialogs are hot garbage, and users ALONE should have control over input focus. If you need the user's attention flash/animate. If you cannot make a thing without a dialog, focus lock, or focus theft then maybe the thing you were trying to make was inherently a bad idea. W…

I had no idea wth you were talking about until you mentioned Visual Studio Installer, then I knew immediately what you meant. This is a huge problem for Windows and Mac.

Steam also has this problem in Linux, though that's the only program I can think of. Opening Steam results in three different windows stealing focus in sequence for no other reason than to tell you that Steam is in the process of opening.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#129

god forbid you leave firefox set to never remember history, you don't get the option to block sites forever. So every time you hit a reddit link it will gleefully present you with a prompt about notification permissions.

You could use this extension to always redirect to old reddit, which doesn't have any notification shenanigans.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/old-reddit-re...

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#130
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox’s source code is open. So is Visual Studio Code. Could you please tell us what is collected that could possibly be used maliciously? You can get started here - https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-extension-telemetry and https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode

I didn't say that I believe it's being used maliciously. I pointed out that "Second, Mozilla seems to use telemetry data responsibly and well." is an assumption that can't be justified by observing publicized uses of the telemetry. It presumes that published uses of telemetry encompass all uses of telemetry. I have no reason to look at Mozilla's source because their stated policy already admits they collect informati…

I think the important point is that software developers prefer to enable telemetry silently, without even notifying the user, let alone asking for a permission. If they think that telemetry is so useful, why not ask the user about it?
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