I would like to send notifications to the mobile users of my website (especially Android/Chrome users).
I see that Azure Notification Hub handle Google (GCM) technology, and i've red this tutorial: Send push notifications to Chrome apps, but can this be done with a simple Web application, and not a Chrome Application like in this tutorial?
My application is an ASP.NET MVC 4.5, hosted on Azure.
This feature is currently not supported with Azure Notification Hubs. However, this is in the future roadmap for the product.
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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.
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.
Is it still possible to enable authenticated (no-quota) push notifications for company app on Windows Phone?
There were a couple of blog posts by Windows Phone team documenting the process to enable no-quota push notifications for company app but now, on development portal, it is not possible to upload a certificate without linking it to an app.
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2013/12/10/enabling-no-quota-push-notifications-for-company-apps-on-windows-phone/
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2013/06/06/no-quota-push-notifications-using-a-root-certificate-authority/
I'm sure Microsoft added this feature a couple of years ago but now it seems to has been removed.
Do you know if authenticated push notifications for company app is still supported by Microsoft?
This is because you have the old developer account UI , and I think you should upgrade to store dev :
Unify windows phone developer account with store developer account
However , there was old trick for enterprise testers to test their apps by passing windows store with Build it Beta, it is similar to testflight, or hockeyapps.
Update:
if you are saying that you have updated your account, and you got the new dashboard simply follow :
Dashboard>apps>services>push notifications
as appears in image below
I have heard that push notifications are now supported in Chrome (including Android) as a website, but the documents I can find talk about chrome.gcm as only available in a Chrome App or Chrome Extension. What do I do?
chrome.gcm was a proprietary push API built for Chrome Apps and Extensions which the user has to install.
There is a new API called Push API (spec) which is a web standard based on service workers, and available to normal websites.
This walkthrough explains how to send notifications from your website and should get you up and running: https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/getting-started/push-notifications/
We are exploring the inviting Chrome Packaged Apps for developing our HTML5 based Offline Web-Application and for that, chrome's background apps feature is quite interesting and complies to our requirements. However, i have the following query:
1. Will the app continue to run in the background if the user has closed the Chrome Browser window? Actually I want to sync my data to an online server and want it to keep running even if the user has closed the browser window.
Can anyone guide is this feature possible in Chrome's packaged background apps?
You can use one of the following technologies in Chrome Packaged Apps:
Alerts API: it allows you to schedule periodic runs of a specific piece of code
Cloud Service and PushMessaging API: although in experimental state, this API will allow your Chrome App to receive notifications from an third-party, for example your own server. This is, however, not appropriate for broadcasts, as each pushmessage goes to one app and one user per time.