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Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

blog.nightly.mozilla.org

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Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#101

Post by jopsen »

I wish Mozilla would use this as a profit opportunity.

Pay a fee to get your domain whitelisted for features like fullscreens, notifications prompts, etc.

Part of the fee goes to handle complaints, if your site gets too many complains or is found to violate policies your sites permissions are revoked and you need to remedy the situation and apply again.

If Facebook can responsibly handle not sending me notifications I don't need they won't get any complaints from me. But if they notify all users about a useless auto-generated-end-of-year-movie they made, then perhaps they'll loose permissions.

For certain features it wouldn't be unreasonable to require that sites are vetted. There could be tiers related to how many uses you have, such that small companies aren't locked out.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#102

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

zaarn wrote: post #82
gsich wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I ask the folks on HN who constantly criticise the collection of such telemetry, what did I lose as a user when Firefox collected this anonymised data? More importantly, how would you have made a decision here without the data? Intuition? (I’d request that no one reply with platitudes like “with enough data nothing is anonymous” and “you’re making a nothing-to-hide argument”) You don't need telemetry to find out tha…

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 emulating popups via CSS to keep abusing their users (hi Medium!).

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#103

Post by dmitriid »

scarejunba wrote: post #83
dmitriid wrote: post #33

It still boggles my mind how over engineered that prompt is in Firefox [1]. And glad to see that the new prompt follows Safari’s simple “Allow / Disallow”. [1] Of course I got into a shouting match on Twitter about it some time back: https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/920293887746433024 and https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/920373234104700931

I honestly think a patch is a more productive way to deal with this if you're a developer who wants to see the functionality.

What if I'm a developer who has no idea how Firefox UI works?

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#104

Post by alpaca128 »

epse wrote: post #29
l0b0 wrote: post #12

About time. Introducing a feature like this without a "Go away, and never come back!" button was a big UX fail IMO. On a related note, seems like desktop notifications would be a great venue for remote code exploits. Have there been any yet?

Under the big arrow next to the "Not now" button is a "Never on this site" button, of that's what you mean. Otherwise there is the settings item (which, admittedly was added recently)

I don't want a "never on this site" button, I want "disable popups forever and don't pester me again". Glad this can be done in the settings now.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#106

Post by darkpuma »

nindalf wrote: post #97
darkpuma wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's also failing to acknowledge that using telemetry in a constructive way does not preclude using that telemetry in a malicious way as well.

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 information that could be considered sensitive, under certain circumstances:

> Category 3 “Web activity data”: Information about user web browsing that could be considered sensitive. Examples include users’ specific web browsing history; general information about their web browsing history (such as TLDs or categories of webpages visited over time); and potentially certain types of interaction data about specific webpages visited.

> Pre-Release: May be eligible for default on data collection, provided there is an opt-out.

> Release: Default off. On a case-by-case basis collections may be eligible to be "default on" if mitigations are identified. Mitigations may include UX changes that make users aware of additional risk, technical mechanisms that remove the risk, or a risk assessment done of a case-by-case basis that determines the risk is limited.

So here we have mozilla admitting that their default-on telemetry in pre-release copies of Firefox may include browsing history. This is information that COULD be used improperly. That's not to say Mozilla is, but confirmation that they aren't would require independent audits of the organization and their security practices. Simply reviewing their press releases is not enough to conclude that they haven't misused sensitive information.

(Frankly I don't give a damn about VSCode, at all.)

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#107

Post by TorKlingberg »

amanzi wrote: post #37

Good work from Mozilla, but it won't help prevent those sites that pop up a HTML modal asking you to subscribe by email AND then a few seconds later pop up another HTML modal asking to send you notifications to keep you up to date AND then sliding in something from the bottom with "relevant" posts AND maybe also slide something else in from the top or sides with some other thing that just ends up blocking the content…

I don' think Mozilla can stop terrible websites from being terrible. You'll just have to visit better websites.

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#108

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

nindalf wrote: post #97
darkpuma wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's also failing to acknowledge that using telemetry in a constructive way does not preclude using that telemetry in a malicious way as well.

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 don't disagree with you but this is a discussion about Firefox, what does Visual Studio Code have to do with anything?

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#109

Post by lifthrasiir »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #102
zaarn wrote: 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…

Unfortunately we are living in the world where the common sense is wrecked. People do complain if abusive notifications are blocked and websites are rendered unusable as a result, though it is completely the fault of websites! Keep in mind that browser vendors are trying to solve multivariate equations that involve users, web developers, companies, abusers and crackers...

Re: Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox

#110

Post by usernam33 »

throwawayjava wrote: post #26
Someone1234 wrote: post #25

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.

Software on Linux is not always better. IntelliJ for example took focus two times on startup for a long time.
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