Google Gets Rid Of Chrome Desktop Notification Center

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Google will soon remove the notification center from Chrome for Windows, Mac and Linux, the Internet firm announced on Wednesday. The company is giving a simple reason for the change, that is, very few users actually visit the notification center. The notification center in Chrome OS, however, will remain.

Users not very fond of notifications

For several years, Google has been toying with notifications in Chrome. Since May 2010, push notifications on the desktop have been supported from Chrome apps and extensions. The ability to send push notifications to Chrome users via the emerging web push standard was added recently with the release of Chrome 42 in April this year.

In 2013, the notification center started showing up, primarily to provide support to Google Now for desktop. Google wanted to help users to keep track of notifications, so they could catch up on the information they received from the apps and extensions while they were away. But many of the users didn’t bother. Many Chrome users immediately disabled the notification center as it was too annoying with it bothering them even outside the browser, says VentureBeat.

Developers will be interested in reading the new notifications documentation that includes the changes affecting Chrome apps and extensions. In short, any notification sent solely to the notification center will result in an error from now on, and at the same time, API events tied to the notification center won’t work any longer. All other notifications will continue to function without any changes.

Google rolls out Chrome v46

Separately, Google also rolled out Chrome v46 for Android, Windows, Mac and Linux. The new version includes fixes for several bugs, and security improvements as well. The updated browser will start marking HTTPS websites with minor errors with the same blank page icon as was used for HTTP websites.

The icons will remain unchanged for secured HTTPS pages, regular HTTP pages and broken HTTPS pages. Google expects more HTTP site operators to shift to HTTPS as it introduces the new icon placement for websites. “We have to strike a balance: representing the security state of a webpage as accurately as possible, while making sure users are not overwhelmed with too many possible states and details,” Google noted in a blog post.

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