Now in your account another browser name has been added.

The release of Firefox 44 is scheduled for January 26, but we have already prepared and implemented its support, as it is now in the beta branch. We will describe how alerts look in Firefox and how they differ from alerts in other browsers.

By the way, the incoming alert on Linux looks like this.



I note that from the previous version the appearance of the notification has changed, now the title is above the picture. Strange decision. It doesn’t look very beautiful. But nothing can be done.

The main advantage is the standard.

Firefox is the first browser to provide push API alerts. Chrome uses a proprietary method of receiving alerts and is attached to the standard with a crutch.

Most likely, other browsers will soon join this standard, however, Firefox still does not comply with some requirements. For example, in the display of an alert or its parameters.

Mans are described rather chaotically and it is easier to understand development by the example - simple-push-demo.appspot.com There are
sources on Github - github.com/gauntface/simple-push-demo/tree/master/app
I’ll add from myself - differences from Chrome only that the transferred endpoint can be used immediately for sending. And browsers can be distinguished by just the address in the endpoint.

Main disadvantages

Alerts are sent from the server one at a time. If you send them individually, on one connection, then for each 1 second. This is a lot. This is due to the use of encryption.

You can send them using one connection. According to our estimates, 32 alerts can be sent in 4-6 seconds. Already not bad.

In the future, we will try to use multi-threaded cURL to speed up sending. I did not find limits on the number of requests.

As I wrote above, the appearance is terrible. But the worst thing is that they disappear after 5 seconds. And at the moment this is not fixed. There is a key in the standard. When using this parameter, the notification should “hang” until the user responds to it. However, Firefox ignores this key.

requireInteraction: true




As in Chrome, notification settings are hidden far away, but there is a settings button that will help you unsubscribe from notifications.

Summary

If we take the data of StatCounter, then we now support more than 70% of the browser market for receiving alerts in Russia.



If you take the data in the world, then about 80%.



Unfortunately, for IE there is not even a Notification API. Fortunately, we have plans for a version for Windows. We also hope that Opera will either return GCM to its chrome or use the open standard.
Also, do not forget that we already have implemented support for Android, Safari, Telegram, and even email alerts. We hope that soon we will complete the application for iOS and update the Android application.

You can try everything on our website