With Chrome Notifications, Google Lets Anyone Turn Web Sites More Into Apps

One of the advantages for both publishers and their readers with apps is the ability to send notifications, alerts about important stories or events. But not every publisher has an app. Now Google has launched a way to send notifications, no-app required.

“Chrome Notifications” allows publishers to send notifications to those who use Chrome, Google’s own web browser. There’s no need for visitors to download an app. Instead, when visitors arrive at a publisher’s web site, they’ll get asked if they want to receive notifications from that site.

Here’s an example from Google’s blog post today showing how this works, where visiting a site brings up a message asking if someone wants notifications:

When a notification is subscribed to, here’s an example as how it might appear for a user when pushed to their Android phone:

Right now, the notification system only works for Chrome on desktop (PC, Mac & Chromebook) and within Android. So Chrome users within iOS apparently wouldn’t get notifications. Sites that Google says are early adopters of the new system include eBay, Facebook, Pinterest and Vice, among others. However, there seems no reason that any site couldn’t now implement these, as long as they follow the HTML 5 Open Web guidelines on push notifications.

Chrome For Android is also now supporting “Add To Homescreen” icons for sites that are mobile-optimized, the post said, pointing here for more information on that.