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by danShumway 1914 days ago
You'd rather install the website as a native app so that it has even more device access and then allow it to send notifications to your phone?

Is that really a cleaner, less intrusive UX for you then it would be to have an easily ignorable button next to a website's address bar that would allow you to turn notifications on or off for each website with maybe three or four clicks at max?
1 comments
oji0hub 1914 days ago
> You'd rather install the website as a native app so that it has even more device access and then allow it to send notifications to your phone?

I can always chose not to install an app.

> Is that really a cleaner, less intrusive UX for...

Imho it's a security question. I don't care if it's clean or less intrusive, the browser should be a sandbox.

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danShumway 1914 days ago
> I can always chose not to install an app.

Sure, but I can also choose not to use a website or service. If a set of features is only available in a specific medium (whether that's a website or an app) your choice is the same -- you either use it in that medium or you don't.

> the browser should be a sandbox.

This is an interesting point, because I do get where you're coming from, but I almost draw the opposite conclusion from the same data. The browser is a sandbox, so I want to put things in it. I refuse to install a native app to check my bank balance or post on social media, I don't trust those companies with that level of access to my phone.

The browser is a better sandbox than my native device, and notifications don't really break the browser sandbox in any significant way. So if (as heavyset_go suggests) notifications are the difference between having an app built in the sandbox or out of it, then I want notifications, because I want the app to be built in the sandbox.

If having notifications could make it feasible to use Twitter without installing an app, then great, we should do that. Or if notifications are enough that I don't need to have an email app or Matrix client installed... it's a pretty substantial win for security if I can get rid of those apps on my phone and use them as mobile progressive websites instead. Having email notifications on my phone is mandatory for me, I can't drop that feature. But is that alone a good reason to install a completely separate application that's requesting filesystem access or contact access?

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