I think there should be a difference between sites which the user is merely browsing, and sites which a user is actively using. The former shouldn't be able to show popups, while the latter may. Moving a website from "browsing" to "using" state could be done with a (small) button in the top bar. It's in a sense like "installing" an app.
Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
141–150 of 268 posts
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the Firefox approach. Nightly collects a lot of data (because you're a power user that want to improve the browser). Regular release collect a lot less.
This is the reason why windows doesn't let you opt out- power users would opt out. Case in point - jump lists were removed from start menu. That said- why treat regular users unfairly by not optimizing for their use cases too?
I don't see how this issue has much to do with "fairness." There's no reason that any organization must treat its audiences identically.
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#143It's slightly unfortunate that after reading this I went to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notificatio... to read up about them, and immediately got an unsolicited "allow notifications?" prompt.
To clarify: MDN in general does not ask for notification permissions.
However, it does execute code samples on the page.
That page has a code sample for requesting permissions.
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#144It's insane that the two visible options are "Not now" and "Allow notifications" while 99 percent of the time I want never bother me again, in fact disable this feature entirely. I clicked yes exactly 3 times (my own Nextcloud instance, Protonmail and Whatsapp web), I'd be happy to do some more clicking to enable those at the "cost" of never being bugged again.
I was beginning to wonder if I can disable globally by default and have no popups, just manually enable it for a specific site if I want it badly enough (I don't think I ever will anyway). Of course then they'll start showing weird UI pop ups to enable stuff, but if websites ever do that I will close them as I do with sites that tell me to disable adblock, the last few times I ever got malware on my system was due to…
User script that overrides the API to noop. :)
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#145Serious question though: has anyone here ever used the notifications for anything other than web based IM (slack, whatsapp)? I think the use case for legit notifications is very small, thus the UI should be an opt-in, rather than an intrusive pop-up. I never understood why browser makers gave it such a prominent UI, and of course in this attention seeking market it was bound to be abused. The new UI that Firefox is s…
I wish GitHub had web push notifications. I'm happy that Reddit has them, but they barely work to be honest. Sometimes it seems to work, most of the times it just doesn't.
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#146Serious question though: has anyone here ever used the notifications for anything other than web based IM (slack, whatsapp)? I think the use case for legit notifications is very small, thus the UI should be an opt-in, rather than an intrusive pop-up. I never understood why browser makers gave it such a prominent UI, and of course in this attention seeking market it was bound to be abused. The new UI that Firefox is s…
> Serious question though: has anyone here ever used the notifications for anything other than web based IM (slack, whatsapp)?
I'm building a tool that uses browser notifications to ping when something new is created. It only asks for permission, when a user clicks the button which is clearly labeled to "setup browser notifications". It also sends only 1! notification until the browser tab is opened again, to not spam.
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#147This “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 po…
Have you used Firefox? A notification about telemetry is shown on-screen the first time you launch it, including a link (or maybe button, I forget) taking you to the settings page where it can be disabled.
If you're talking about telemetry collection in general, and not specifically Firefox, then nevermind.
I don't find telemetry bad in any way, provided that it is non-identifying telemetry, so I don't mind that it's on by default. There should always be an option to turn it off for those that want to.
Many, many more applications collect telemetry than people suspect, and for every application you know of that collects it, there are a dozen that collect it without telling you.
You are right about notifications being over used. We've all gotten notification fatigue, now, because every website thinks it's own notifications are super important. I want notifications when major news events happen, when my wife texts me, and for nothing else. I do not, and will not ever, care to be notified the instant a website has new content.
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#148Serious question though: has anyone here ever used the notifications for anything other than web based IM (slack, whatsapp)? I think the use case for legit notifications is very small, thus the UI should be an opt-in, rather than an intrusive pop-up. I never understood why browser makers gave it such a prominent UI, and of course in this attention seeking market it was bound to be abused. The new UI that Firefox is s…
I have a self-hosted home automation platform with a web UI that uses web notifications for tons of things around the house (for example, a notification shows up on my device if the front-door camera notices my face, and the notification has 2 actions I can take right from the notification: "Turn on the outside lights" and "unlock the front door").
I also have it enabled for a website that sends out notifications when they go live for their podcast, the google play music site has them enabled for me to show song titles and album art when the song changes, and Circle-CI has them turned on for when builds pass/fail, but for some reason that one only works when I have the tab open...
That being said, i'm more than happy with this new UI! It's easy enough to find that sites can implement directions for users to go enable it if they want, and it's not in everyone's face for every news site that spams asking for it.
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#149This “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 po…
> Make it voluntary and there would be no problems at all.
Unfortunately that would make the telemetry non-representative. That said, it is opt-in when possible, if you consider "using Nightly" as opt-in (it's clearly explained before and after installing Nightly).
> You can just start a browser, visit top 1000 popular sites and count how many of them show the popup.
That doesn't tell you anything about what behaviour led up to a permission request that got granted vs the 97% that got ignored. Furthermore, it wouldn't have told them that the notification request is denied far more often by users than the webcam/mic request.
> 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.
It would be nice to have data on when users revoke permissions again as well, indeed.
Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Firefox does notify the user, along with a button to disable it.