
Ask HN: Every website wants to send me notifications - ankit84
Most of the news, blog, or e-commerce websites I visit these days ask me to get notified about the new content. Is this ruining the web experience? Is this overuse of Notification APIs by websites?<p>E.g. mdn.mozillademos.org wants to show notifications. {BLOCK}  {ALLOW}
======
untog
I'm surprised you are seeing this with "most" sites - I barely ever see it,
but I agree that it's infuriating when I do.

I don't think this trend will last, though. If a user denies the notification
request then the site is _never allowed to ask again_ \- the user has to
manually enable the permission. People are going to learn quite quickly that
if you don't put the request in the context of a specific action you're
screwing yourself over.

That said, I wouldn't mind it if these prompts could only be shown in response
to click events. Small downside, but it would stop the request spam quite
effectively.

~~~
balac
> If a user denies the notification request then the site is never allowed to
> ask again

Sites will start doing what apps have been doing for a while on ios, use a
custom dialog to ask for the permission until they agree, only then will they
trigger the native, one time only dialog.

~~~
katpas
LinkedIn only offer an agree and a not now option. It's really irritating. I'm
literally never going to enable that.

~~~
tedmiston
It wouldn't be their first UX dark pattern.

------
sdfjkl
That's what RSS is for, no? Keeps the subscription under your control, you
don't have to share anything with anyone, you can unsubscribe easily and it's
trivial to anonymize through a reader that caches/proxies the requests.

Perfect for the end user. Not so perfect for the spam industry, of course, but
whenever those guys get to decide how something on the internet should work it
always turns ugly, so that really has to stop.

~~~
sdfjkl
To turn it off in Firefox' about:config, switch both to False:

    
    
       dom.webnotifications.serviceworker.enabled
       dom.webnotifications.enabled

~~~
Jade_Jet
Thank you for that, I keep getting annoyed by that and keep forgetting to look
up how to disable that. I finally just disabled it.

------
bazzargh
Chrome lets you disable that request: Preferences->Show advanced
settings->Content Settings (under 'Privacy')->Notifications

Select "Do not allow any site to show notifications"

Myself, I find this just as bad as the constant overlays asking for you to
sign up to a mailing list. I use the 'Behind the Overlay' extension to kill
those, but I'd like something that prevented them appearing in the first
place.

~~~
tbirrell
This assumes Chrome bothers to remember your settings in the first place :P

------
shortoncash
I actually like this feature. It's more useful on sites that don't update as
frequently or have more obscure content. However, I really dislike
notifications from the mainstream websites because I was going to visit them
during the day anyway.

------
adrianN
If I want notifications from a website I add its RSS feed to my reader.

------
return0
And every blog (and not only blog) asks me to subscribe to their newsletter
before i even read the article.

Are these things so effective that everyone uses them?

~~~
perlgeek
Unfortunately yes. Popups get a rather high conversion, and if you want to
sell an info product, selling to an email list seems to be the way to go.

------
brianprovost
I've never clicked allow. I don't turn on notifications for phone apps either
though.

------
BurningFrog
My main annoyance is that I'm not sure what they're asking for?

What _kind_ of notification? How does it work? When/where will I be notified?
How would I turn it off?

------
superplussed
I don't think it is ruining the experience because it's easy to not allow
them, my question is: how is it that so many people are clicking allow that
businesses see it worth the annoyance to add this to their site. That's what
baffles me.

~~~
jpalomaki
Maybe the problem is that you don't know how few will allow it, before you add
it to the site. When you know that nobody cares, all the work is already done
and removing the feature would actually require some more effort.

------
jsz0
One good thing about web notification requests is you can use them as an
opportunity to evaluate what sites you want to continue reading on a regular
basis. When I get a notification request I always stop and think about it for
a minute. If a site isn't notification worthy then is it worth reading
everyday? Sometimes yeah but I've been able to purge a lot of sites of my
daily reading list using this method. I was surprised at just how many sites I
was reading purely out of habit. Being forced to judge their quality /
importance to me was super helpful.

------
ankit84
Example: Never miss a great news story! Get instant notifications from
Economic Times
[http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/gov...](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/governments-
direct-tax-kitty-swells-to-rs-5-57-lakh-crore-between-april-and-
december/articleshow/56240236.cms)

This news site is showing a custom popup to ask for permission and blocking
the content.

------
awinter-py
Increased engagement from the users who stay is more visible than the
attrition of the users who don't return because of notification overload.

There's a 'silent majority' effect when you measure the impact of a feature
that increases engagement.

Imagine a feature causes 50% of users to immediately read another article and
the other 50% to never return. That may look like a win after 2 weeks of
testing, but the long-term effects on your business can be iffy.

------
rwieruch
Google will punish pop ups in the future. [0] I heard something about early
2017, but cannot find where it's written down.

\- [0] [https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-
easi...](https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-
access-content-on.html)

------
tzs
Has anyone got lucky and had a site do all of the following on the same page?

• Ask to send notifications,

• Ask to use your location,

• Say something about you not having the SharePoint plugin or asking
permission to use it or something like that?

------
prophesi
I think the best way to go about it is to have a switch/checkbox for the user
to opt-in. Only then will the browser prompt the user to enable notifications.
It's trivial to make this change.

I'm amazed so many sites have this feature, because it was an absolute
nightmare for me to get it working alongside Google's sw-precache library.

------
ryanmccullagh
Notifications are the most annoying thing ever. Facebook innovated on the
notification icon and concept back in 2008 or so. Since then every one has
followed their path. I do not like notifications on my phone unless it is for
my email and I am currently on call (Thanks FastMail for having an amazing
notification system (real time)).

------
caleblloyd
I run Slack in it's own Chrome Window via the Add to Desktop Feature in the
Chrome options menu. With Notifications Enabled it is a viable replacement to
the desktop app.

Slack's Desktop app is built on Electron, so it's a second installation of
Chrome anyways.

------
tedmiston
I've been tossing around building a global notifications blocker.

You could turn it on / off when you just want to browse Facebook or whatever
site without the notifications and that tiny red badge nagging you away from
what you're doing.

------
nkkollaw
I hate those in news sites, but I did find them useful for a couple of
websites—mainly where I was waiting for a reply for an auction or booking
request.

------
agumonkey
Maybe reverse the behavior. Instead of asking, make it a standard feature in
UI:

Alt-N => browser pop under:

[offers notifications][show all][show some]

Or maybe just some icon in the url bar ?

------
kareldonk
Subscription popups/overlays are the anti christ

------
rootme
Is the new Pop Up Banner Option?

