
Mozilla developing Web push notification system for Firefox - tambourine_man
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/mozilla-developing-web-push-notification-system-for-firefox.ars
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gkoberger
Here's the original blog post they reference [EDIT: and now link to], with
technical details and code samples:

<http://jbalogh.me/2012/01/30/push-notifications/>

And, the wiki page:

<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Services/Notifications/Push/API>

Firefox has a presence on most operating systems (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android
and iOS), so the goal would be that a website could send you a notification
whenever and Mozilla would figure out the best place to alert you of it.

(Disclaimer: Mozilla employee, but not working on notifications)

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jazzychad
This is word-for-word what Notifo was built to accomplish. Maybe with the
weight of Mozilla behind the effort (and a large pre-existing install base)
they will have more success.

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StavrosK
I have the same problem with this feature I had with Notifo: It sounds
awesome, until I try to think where I'd use it. I can't find many uses where
it would beat email, even though I use it for some things like HN comment
replies, notifications for actions on my web apps and various personal events.

I think the area where notifications are important, but slightly less
important than email, yet not so unimportant that you don't want to have a
user install another app, is pretty small... Too bad, I very much like the
idea of Notifo. When will it stop working? Do you plan on open sourcing any
part of it?

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mcpherrinm
Interesting that you see it as competing with email -- I first thought of it
as a "new mail" notification for gmail/facebook/hN/etc.

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StavrosK
But it _does_ compete with email, I get instant push notifications on my email
client on all my devices. The killer feature of Notifo et al is that you can
customize the alerts that will be generated, but that's a small part of what
the notification does (i.e. notify you).

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AndrewDucker
Interesting idea - I'd be happy to have a standard method of passing
notifications that were simpler than an email from any site to any user.

But I do not like the idea of tying it to web browsers, or to one aggregator.
If I want all of my notifications to go to Google and be turned into emails,
or to Facebook and appear in my inbox there, or to a server I run myself,
where I can get them with a desktop app, then I should be able to.

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icebraining
I don't see anything that ties people to a single aggregator, and it's not
common for Mozilla to design for that. From the spec[1] it seems they're
designing a system where client has to accept any URL to notify and any server
can work as long as they accept POST request with certain parameters.

[1]: <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Services/Notifications/Push/API>

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AndrewDucker
Looking at the higher level document* the Post Office seems to require the
Mozilla ID. It's possible that that just means "A unique ID for that server",
but I'd like that to be explicit.

* [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Services/Notifications/Push#Post_Of...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Services/Notifications/Push#Post_Office)

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jbalogh
Like all wikis, that document was way out of date.

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AndyKelley
I don't like the fact that it requires Mozilla to have a proxy server. It's a
single point of failure - it has scalability and political implications.

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wmf
There has to be a server somewhere and we know users won't pay for it, so
what's left?

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AndyKelley
It's crazy how much browsers are becoming operating systems. I'm neither for
nor against it in general; I simply think it is an interesting thing to watch
happen. However in this case, I think it makes more sense for the user to
download a desktop application in order to get push notifications directly
from the server when not browsing the website.

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wmf
I guess they don't want the app to hold open connections to every site (some
people have solved the C1M problem but some haven't) and they probably want a
server to buffer messages when the app is not running. You'd run into these
same issues whether the notifications are received by Firefox or a different
desktop app.

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joshu
Man. I've wanted to build something like this since I was at Yahoo. Glad to
see someone's finally doing this.

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xp84
I hope they develop a stop-people-from-switching-to-Chrome system. Other than
incrementing their version number faster.

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jdg
Awesome. This is what we've been building over at Boxcar, albeit outside of
the browser.

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drivebyacct2
I'm betting this is more about boot2gecko than Firefox. Maybe not a lot more,
but it's certainly necessary for boot2gecko to have any feasibility.

Does anyone know why they're pushing this instead of plain old Server Sent
Events (something w3c is already working on for servers to push to browsers)?

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jbalogh
I think notifications will be useful in all our browsers, not just B2G. I'm
targeting Firefox Mobile for the initial release since mobile is where
notifications fit in the best.

I don't see notifications supplanting Server Sent Events. SSE gives developers
a lot more control over the stream since it's connected directly to your
server, and you don't have to bother the users with permission dialogs. You'd
use push notifications if the user doesn't have your site open, but otherwise
SSE gives you more power.

(I'm working on push notifications.)

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drivebyacct2
Cool. :) Thanks for the reply. I had assumed that an "app" made for Firefox or
Chrome would be able to register a handle for a Server Sent Event so that apps
could be notified or have their state changed via an Action even if the tab
isn't open. Somehow I missed that this was that functionality via a new API.

As for B2G, I think I just got excited about it because notifications was the
bit I was interested in seeing work out.

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AznHisoka
What about notifications that don't require Firefox to be opened? Or
notifications that don't require an internet connection? or notifications that
don't require your computer to be on? What about notifications that don't even
require me to be awake? Send me push notifications through ether, straight
into my brain.

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zobzu
apple's working on the eyephone.

