How to send push notification to web browser?

Question

I have been reading for past few hours about Push Notification API and Web Notification API. I also discovered that Google & Apple gives push notification service for free via GCM and APNS respectively.

I am trying to understand if we can implement push notification to browsers using Desktop Notification, which I believe is what Web Notification API does. I saw a google documentation on how this can be done for Chrome here & here.

Now what am still not able to understand is:

1. Can we use GCM/APNS to send push notification to all Web Browsers including Firefox & Safari?
2. If not via GCM can we have our own back-end to do the same?

I believe all these answered in one answer can help a lot of people who are having similar confusions.

Solution 1

So here I am answering my own question. I have got answers to all my queries from people who have build push notification services in the past.

Update (May 2022): Here is a doc on web push notification from Google.

See this detailed introduction to notification API from Mozilla.

Airships article on the topic and how web push & app push varies.

Answer to the original questions asked 6 years ago:

1. Can we use GCM/APNS to send push notification to all Web Browsers including Firefox & Safari?

Answer: Google has deprecated GCM as of April 2018. You can now use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). This supports all platforms including web browsers.

2. If not via GCM can we have our own back-end to do the same?

Answer: Yes, push notification can be sent from our own back-end. Support for the same has come to all major browsers.

Check this codelab from Google to better understand the implementation.

Some Tutorials:

• Implementing push notification in Django Here.
• Using flask to send push notification Here & Here.
• Sending push notifcaiton from Nodejs Here
• Sending push notification using php Here & Here
• Sending push notification from Wordpress. Here & Here
• Sending push notification from Drupal. Here

Implementing own backend in various programming languages.:

• NodeJs.
• PHP
• Rails
• Python
• Go Lang - this and this

Further Readings:

• Documentation from Firefox website can be read here.
• A very good overview of Web Push by Google can be found here.
• An FAQ answering most common confusions and questions.

Are there any free services to do the same? There are some companies that provide a similar solution in free, freemium and paid models. Am listing few below:

1. https://onesignal.com/ (Free | Support all platforms)
2. https://firebase.google.com/products/cloud-messaging/ (Free)
3. https://clevertap.com/ (Has free plan)
4. https://goroost.com/

Note: When choosing a free service remember to read the TOS. Free services often work by collecting user data for various purposes including analytics.

Apart from that, you need to have HTTPS to send push notifications. However, you can get https freely via letsencrypt.org

Solution 2

Javier covered Notifications and current limitations.

My suggestion: window.postMessage while we wait for the handicapped browser to catch up, else Worker.postMessage() to still be operating with Web Workers.

These can be the fallback option with dialog box message display handler, for when a Notification feature test fails or permission is denied.

Notification has-feature and denied-permission check:

if (!("Notification" in window) || (Notification.permission === "denied") ) {
    // use (window||Worker).postMessage() fallback ...
}

Solution 3

You can push data from the server to the browser via Server Side Events. This is essentially a unidirectional stream that a client can "subscribe" to from a browser. From here, you could just create new Notification objects as SSEs stream into the browser:

var source = new EventSource('/events');

source.on('message', message => {
  var notification = new Notification(message.title, {
    body: message.body
  });
}); 

A bit old, but this article by Eric Bidelman explains the basics of SSE and provides some server code examples as well.

Solution 4

this is simple way to do push notification for all browser https://pushjs.org

Push.create("Hello world!", {
body: "How's it hangin'?",
icon: '/icon.png',
timeout: 4000,
onClick: function () {
    window.focus();
    this.close();
 }
});

Solution 5

GCM/APNS are only for Chrome and Safari respectively.

I think you may be looking for Notification:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification

It works in Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

View more solutions

Comments

[dandavis]

sure, you can run your own backend, but it's complicated.

[TRiNE]

It is not complicated much. browser-push is a complete example tutorial on how to send push notifications to browsers without third party service. lahiiru.github.io/browser-push

[Marco Castelluccio]

You can use the Push API, each browser provides its own service.

[collimarco]

You need HTTPS only for the Push API, not for Safari

[Kokizzu]

onesignal, nice info :3

[Akash Budhia]

Incase you don't wish to pay 3rd party libraries, here's a developer guide of writing this yourself. cronj.com/blog/browser-push-notifications-using-javascript . It also mentions how to handle when you don't wish to move your main site to HTTPs. (Node.js and JavaScript).

[TRiNE]

Here is complete guide and source code of mine. lahiiru.github.io/browser-push

[Lemmings19]

Onesignal is free, but note how much data it captures from your users. Please read the ToS before using: onesignal.com/tos

[That Realty Programmer Guy]

LetsEncrypt.org means you should have no trouble getting HTTPS for everythign

[Vladimir Vlasov]

Are you sure that gorush from the Go Lang link is applicable here? Because I think it's a service for sending push notifications to iOS and Android. There are some Go libraries for the Web Push Protocol like webpush-go and web-push-go.

[Accountant م]

Also check this Firefox document about the subject

[esafwan]

@VladimirVlasov Updated the answer. Thanks for pointing it out.

[esafwan]

@Accountantم Added it to the list. Thanks

[koder]

PushAlert has also a free plan and they don't collect data.