Chrome 50 Beta Betters Push Notifications & More

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Chrome 50 Beta Betters Push Notifications & More

Google developers have announced the beta release of the Chrome 50 web-browser...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Chrome-50-Beta

[Danny3]

Push notifications allow a site to trigger system-level notifications in the same way that native applications do. The initial version of push notifications relied on service workers to proactively fetch the information for a notification from the server. This led to problems when there were multiple messages in flight or when the device was on a flaky network connection. The latest version of Chrome allows sites to include notification data payloads with their push messages to eliminate the final server check. To protect user privacy, push notification payloads must be encrypted. Push notification payloads are part of the Push API spec and already supported in Firefox.
In addition to payloads, sites can now detect when a notification is closed by the user, enabling better analytics

I bet this will be abused like hell and not only by Facebook with their every second crap, but also by ad makers and malware websites displaying on your desktop notifications styled similar to how your OS will diplay saying "your system is infected, download this to be saved..."
Better analytics= another spyware and money making feature from Google.
Whow is htis helping the use?

[bug77]

I bet this will be abused like hell and not only by Facebook with their every second crap, but also by ad makers and malware websites displaying on your desktop notifications styled similar to how your OS will diplay saying "your system is infected, download this to be saved..."
Better analytics= another spyware and money making feature from Google.
Whow is htis helping the use?

Well, you have to allow each site to show notifications first...

[uid313]

Meh, what about Wayland support?

[droidhacker]

I find this very annoying. Web browsers have become a heck of a lot more bloated/complicated/slow without adding any new USABILITY compared to what they were... 20 years ago. 20 years ago, a web browser would run happily on a 386 with 4 MB of RAM (despite that hardware being horribly obsolete), and they were fast and light, and worked great.

[Serafean]

I find this very annoying. Web browsers have become a heck of a lot more bloated/complicated/slow without adding any new USABILITY compared to what they were... 20 years ago. 20 years ago, a web browser would run happily on a 386 with 4 MB of RAM (despite that hardware being horribly obsolete), and they were fast and light, and worked great.

You still can : http://www.dillo.org/

Well, you have to allow each site to show notifications first...

As of now, yes, but how long until it becomes the default?

S.

[brandonp]

I suspect that many will disagree with me, but I prefer web browsers that separate websites from the OS. I don't like the idea of a browser pushing messages from a website into my OS. Danny3 is correct, no doubt ads are going to abuse this system. If it becomes the norm, I'm just going to have to set my browser's default configuration to reject the messaging.

[Danny3]

You still can : http://www.dillo.org/

..................
As of now, yes, but how long until it becomes the default?

S.

I bet soon Google will turn that on for their services by default.
And you will have to figure out who sent that message to your screen and where is the OPT-OUT configuration.
Just imagine how easy it't for average Joe to opt-out or turn it off completely.

I suspect that many will disagree with me, but I prefer web browsers that separate websites from the OS. I don't like the idea of a browser pushing messages from a website into my OS. Danny3 is correct, no doubt ads are going to abuse this system. If it becomes the norm, I'm just going to have to set my browser's default configuration to reject the messaging.

I think this will be the same as it was with "automatic updates"
Once a useful feature and good for your security, now it's big risk to do that, to trust the issueing company so blindly.
In my opinion the "automatic updates" in Windows and Chrome it's a backdoor and a major security problem.

It looks to me that this situation is similar and once you trust a website to send you notifications, then they can send you anything including ads and who knows, in the future they may add the possibility to send videos, executables or "payloads" means that this is already implemented...

"sites can now detect when a notification is closed by the user"
I bet some nasty webdevelopers when will see the user closed the notification, will send 1 more, 3 more 100 just to see how fast a use can close tens of them.

I just hope Firefox will do the right thing and protect our security and privacy.

[unixfan2001]

I bet soon Google will turn that on for their services by default.
And you will have to figure out who sent that message to your screen and where is the OPT-OUT configuration.
Just imagine how easy it't for average Joe to opt-out or turn it off completely.

And how will they do that, pray tell? It's a standardised API.
This isn't a basic implementation detail that is easily changeable without breaking cross browser support.

I think this will be the same as it was with "automatic updates"
Once a useful feature and good for your security, now it's big risk to do that, to trust the issueing company so blindly.
In my opinion the "automatic updates" in Windows and Chrome it's a backdoor and a major security problem.

The alternative to automatic updates is not being secure. If you don't trust the software provider, better not use the software rather than run an old, outdated, unsupported, vulnerable version.

It looks to me that this situation is similar and once you trust a website to send you notifications, then they can send you anything including ads and who knows, in the future they may add the possibility to send videos, executables or "payloads" means that this is already implemented...

Those permissions can be easily withdrawn and I doubt videos or other arbitrary content are going to be added to the standard any time soon.

"sites can now detect when a notification is closed by the user"
I bet some nasty webdevelopers when will see the user closed the notification, will send 1 more, 3 more 100 just to see how fast a use can close tens of them.

That's an implementation detail, at best.
Firstly, there is already the functionality to block duplicate notifications through tags. If this became a required attribute, you couldn't push multiple messages from the same source simultaneously, filling up your screen.

Secondly, not all desktop notification daemons even support displaying multiple notifications simultaneously.

Lastly, If you find a notification that is trying to spam your desktop, you can quite easily remove permissions again. On Windows, it's as easy as clicking the gear icon that is attached to every notification, forcing the notification to stay open while you change permissions.

I just hope Firefox will do the right thing and protect our security and privacy.

They're doing the exact same thing Google is doing. Providing access to a standard API.

[Serafean]

And how will they do that, pray tell? It's a standardised API.
This isn't a basic implementation detail that is easily changeable without breaking cross browser support.

I read the spec now, fair enough. Although I wouldn't put it past chrome to "work around" this limitation for google services.

Those permissions can be easily withdrawn and I doubt videos or other arbitrary content are going to be added to the standard any time soon.

That's an implementation detail, at best.
Firstly, there is already the functionality to block duplicate notifications through tags. If this became a required attribute, you couldn't push multiple messages from the same source simultaneously, filling up your screen.

Secondly, not all desktop notification daemons even support displaying multiple notifications simultaneously.

Lastly, If you find a notification that is trying to spam your desktop, you can quite easily remove permissions again. On Windows, it's as easy as clicking the gear icon that is attached to every notification, forcing the notification to stay open while you change permissions.

At some point, you will remove the browser itself from allowed notifiers, believe me.
At some point web people will want control over appearance of the notifications (I already see this at work). How is this going to work then? Will you suddenly see an Win10 themed notification on OSX?
Allowing remote people to control stuff on my PC is pretty worrisome.

They're doing the exact same thing Google is doing. Providing access to a standard API.

API is one thing, implementation is another. For instance : cookies are an api, the possibility to allow only top level cookies and/or blacklist is an implementation.