I'm making a chrome extension for a classified ads website. With the chrome extension users will be able to get latest lists from their watched categories/search query.
I am already working on a websocket server to send notifications to users, but this way I have to always have a socket connection open to every user.
My second approach was to use Firebase, but this will run the notification only when a user clicks the icon (as I've read), and I would rather have this done from my server
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Are there any other possible solutions to send notifications to a chrome extension without the user clicking on the icon?
You can use Google's push infrastructure ― the very same that powers Android push notifications ― Google Cloud Messaging.
Note: Firebase Cloud Messaging is presented as an upgraded version of GCM; while true, it's not natively supported by Chrome in a way that GCM is.
chrome.gcm API is the one that works with it. See its documentation, as well as GCM documentation, for details.
There's even a tutorial: Implementing GCM Client on Chrome
But in a nutshell, your extension will register as a subscriber with GCM, pass the subscription ID to the server, and then the application server posts messages to GCM using those IDs.
You should also be able to use Firebase, if you're willing to implement it using the generic JS SDK; "this will run the notification only when a user clicks the icon" sounds pretty nonsensical ― a background page should be able to keep a listener alive and react, which is probably how your system works now. I would still recommend a native API, which should be compatible with Event pages.
Have you looked at the chrome.notifications API? It allows you to create rich notifications using templates and show these notifications to users in the system tray.
https://developer.chrome.com/apps/notifications
You can have a connection to your socket server in the background script, listen for messages from your socket server and trigger an event that shows the notification.
Related
I am currently working on a video web application. We rely on notification to notify provider there is call in.
Firebase works well even when I close the tab. I found that if there is any chrome's thread running in background, I will get notification.
Is there any way that I can make a background thread active even the user click close button on chrome? how about chrome extension? does it approach the goal?
Firebase Cloud Messaging for web relies on a service worker to receive messages when the web app is not active/visible. This requires that Chrome is active.
If the user completely quits Chrome, all tabs, service workers and extensions are stopped. There is no way to still receive web push notifications in that case.
I'd like to set up Web Push notifications on my progressive web application (PWA) using Service Workers. But I'm having trouble understanding the role of third-party services like Google Cloud Messaging and Amazon SNS, and if I need them at all.
From what I understand, when the user clicks the Allow notifications button, you get a unique subscription endpoint. Then in your backend, you can use this endpoint to send notifications to that specific user.
However, all back end libraries that I've found (like pywebpush or web-push for Node.js), mention that you need a GCM API key in order to send notifications.
But here is what the MDN Push API documentation says:
Chrome versions earlier than 52 require you to set up a project on
Google Cloud Messaging to send push messages [...]
So I'm assuming that the new versions of Chrome (version 58 today) should be able to display notifications without the help of a third party.
Here is an example of what I want to achieve. I'm just not sure of what they do in the backend.
Note: I'm not trying to send native push notifications to Android or iOS devices, but only to my progressive web application on Chrome using the Web Push API.
The Browser Push Service
As I have explained in another answer, in order to send web push notifications, you need to interact with the browser push service. Basically each browser, when the user allows push notifications, returns an endpoint (URL) that is specific for its own push service.
For example:
Chrome and Opera endpoints start with prefix https://fcm.googleapis.com/, because they use FCM (ex GCM)
Firefox endpoints start with prefix https://updates.push.services.mozilla.com/, because Firefox uses Mozilla autopush
So notifications will always pass through FCM and autopush, there's no alternative: the push service is hardcoded inside the browser.
Web Push Notification Services as a layer of abstraction
There is also another kind of web push services. Their aim is to provide a layer of abstraction and additional features over the browser push service. For example Pushpad is one of them (I am the founder).
Instead of interacting directly with the different browser push services (e.g. FCM, autopush), your web app can interact just with one push service (e.g. Pushpad), which then interacts with the browser push services for you (automating many tasks, like VAPID and providing additional features like monitoring and integrations).
Confusion about FCM
FCM is quite confusing because it acts both as a "browser push service" for Chrome and Opera, but it also acts as a general "web push notification service" for other browsers. So for Firefox for example, FCM acts as a proxy towards Mozilla autopush.
I'm new to web development and currently I'm trying to create a chrome extension.
I followed this google tutorial and also this one and this one but for some reason the push notifications does not work when I define the extension as an extension and not as an application.
Can anyone give some guidance? my code is basically identical to the 2nd tutorial only I am defining the extensions as an extension and not as an application.
To my understanding it might be impossible due to safety reasons(?)..
Any help will be appreciated...
Can I use GCM for a chrome EXTENSION?
Yes you can. GCM docs states that:
For Chrome apps and extensions, GCM enables Chrome instances to send
and receive message data from servers. The
chrome.gcm API allows the
Chrome apps or extensions to access the GCM service. The service works
even if an app or extension isn't currently running. For example,
calendar updates could be pushed to users even when their calendar app
isn't open.
Receive downstream messages
chrome.gcm.onMessage.addListener(function(message) {
// A message is an object with a data property that
// consists of key-value pairs.
});
There's also a dev blog guide that you might want to see. It includes sample codes and instructions like:
How push messaging works
1) Chrome extension gets a Channel ID from Chrome Run-time
2) After receiving Channel ID, your extension sends the channel ID to your web server.
3) Using GCM API, you can send a message to chrome browser which will queued in GCM Server.
4) GCM server sends your message to Chrome Run-time.
5) Chrome Run-time forwards the message to your extension.
In open shift account i had hosted one word press app
"http://music-logavdm2.rhcloud.com"
I also tried the open shift client tool to list the app
app music but that also tells the app does not exist
Yesterday i update the blog but today that application not displayed on the web console. and also the
"http://music-logavdm2.rhcloud.com"
not found found DNS address error.
It seems your app may have been removed (possibly due to OpenShift ToS infringement).
In that case, you would receive a notification email with a reason of the removal. You can try contacting OpenShift support, if you received no such email.
I started reading Google Chrome's documentation, and liked it's approach of using HTML and Javascript to create extensions. Reading this tutorial about Local Storage made me think about a lot of different uses.
I want to develop an extension to help me with corporate systems. It's very specific, and it's only going to be used inside a company.
This extension would do some activities to this corporate system, using javascript DOM, with just one click on Google's Chrome toolbar. To work with just one click, the extension needs to store a password in Chrome: so if you restart your system, you don't need to enter it again.
How do I do that? Persist a password in a Google Chrome extension to login to another system? I don't want to store it in "plain text", I would like to at least use some kind of encryption (maybe a Google Chrome API with this resource).
Is it possible? How do I persist this data with Google Chrome's extensions structure (best way)?
You could encrypt and store a user’s password with localStorage (or the Web SQL Database API). But not very securely. Anyone who gained access to the user’s computer could retrieve the ciphertext, pluck the encryption algorithm out of your extension source, and determine the plaintext password.
If feasible, here are a couple more bulletproof solutions:
Piggyback on the user logging into a web interface. For an example, see the Google Mail Checker.
Connect to the services through OAuth (or a similar authorization scheme). For an example, see the Google Wave Notifier.