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  amp  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  amp  here   Now what am still not able to understand is    Can we use GCM APNS to send push notification to all Web Browsers including Firefox  amp  Safari  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

May I redefine you question as below     Can we have our own back-end to send push notification to Chrome  Firefox  Opera  amp  Safari    Yes  By today  2017 05   you can use same client and server side implementation to handle Chrome  Firefox and Opera  no Safari   Because they have implemented web push notifications in a same way  That is Push API protocol by W3C  But Safari have their own old architecture  So we have to maintain Safari separately      Refer browser-push repo for guide lines to implement web push notification for your web-app with your own back-end  It explains with examples how you can add web push notification support for your web application without any third party services

User · Answer

As of now GCM only works for chrome and android  similarly firefox and other browsers has their own api   Now coming to the question how to implement push notification so that it will work for all common browsers with own back end    You need client side script code i e service worker refer  Google push notification   Though this remains same for other browsers    2 after getting endpoint using Ajax save it along with browser name   3 You need to create back end which has fields for title message  icon click URL as per your requirements  now after click on send notification  call a function say send push    In this write code for different browsers for example  3 1  for chrome     headers   array             Authorization  key    api key your gcm key              Content-Type  application json               msg   array  to   gt  register id saved to your server        url    https   android googleapis com gcm send       ch   curl init              Set the url  number of POST vars  POST data       curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT URL   url         curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POST  true         curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT HTTPHEADER   headers         curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT RETURNTRANSFER  true          curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT SSL VERIFYPEER  false         curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POSTFIELDS  json encode  msg            result   curl exec  ch     3 2  for mozilla   headers   array                             Content-Type  application json                  TTL  6000                         url    https   updates push services mozilla com wpush v1 REGISTER ID TO SEND NOTIFICATION ON           ch   curl init              Set the url  number of POST vars  POST data       curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT URL   url         curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT POST  true         curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT HTTPHEADER   headers         curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT RETURNTRANSFER  true          curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT SSL VERIFYPEER  false            result   curl exec  ch     for other browsers please google

User · Answer

I suggest using pubnub  I tried using ServiceWorkers and PushNotification from the browser however  however when I tried it webviews did not support this   https   www pubnub com docs web-javascript pubnub-javascript-sdk

User · Answer

I assume you are talking about real push notifications that can be delivered even when the user is not surfing your website  otherwise check out WebSockets or legacy methods like long polling       Can we use GCM APNS to send push notification to all Web Browsers including Firefox  amp  Safari    GCM is only for Chrome and APNs is only for Safari  Each browser manufacturer offers its own service      If not via GCM can we have our own back-end to do the same    The Push API requires two backends  One is offered by the browser manufacturer and is responsible for delivering the notification to the device  The other one should be yours  or you can use a third party service like Pushpad  and is responsible for triggering the notification and contacting the browser manufacturer s service  i e  GCM  APNs  Mozilla push servers    Disclosure  I am the Pushpad founder

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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 2018     Here is a comprehensive and a very well written doc on web push notification from Google    Answer to the original questions asked 3 years ago         Can we use GCM APNS to send push notification to all Web Browsers   including Firefox  amp  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          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  amp  Here  Sending push notifcaiton from Nodejs Here Sending push notification using php Here  amp  Here Sending push notification from Wordpress  Here  amp  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    https   onesignal com   Free   Support all platforms  https   firebase google com products cloud-messaging   Free  https   clevertap com   Has free plan  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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   gt      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

[javascript] How to send push notification to web browser?

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