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by scarlac 3197 days ago
Depends on your OS. For Chrome on macOS, it'll show a chrome-styled square box with an icon and a piece of text in the upper right hand corner, kinda like macOS notifications (but they look nothing like it). In general, web notifications (can) work the same way they do on your smart phone. They can arrive from an active tab as well as from a background service.

Safari (on macOS) will use the native macOS notification system to display notifications AFAIR. I have no idea what IE on Windows does.
2 comments
suprfnk 3196 days ago
> I have no idea wat IE on Windows does.

https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/05/16/web-notificat...

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matt-attack 3196 days ago
But in either case the browser has to be running I’m assuming? Seems kinda flawed.
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spoiler 3196 days ago
JS service workers allow a JavaScript thread to run in the background while the browser chrome (the window) is closed. So, in theory, the browser doesn't need to be open. Also, notifications can be useful with an open browser too (or, multiple tabs with a tab in the background for example)
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rowyourboat 3196 days ago
That depends on the browser implementation. The protocol does not require the user to have the site open.
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