Google enables website notifications in Chrome for Android

Sites can start sending users notifications on Android phones via Chrome. Users don’t need to have an app for that except the browser. The browser does not have to be open to receive the notifications.

Ebay and Facebook, among others, will ask users with Chrome 42 on Android whether they want to receive notifications via Chrome, Google writes. Those notifications send websites through the browser to the phone, but Chrome doesn’t need to be active or even running to receive the notifications. The function works via the Push API that is in HTML5. With the new version, Chrome supports that feature.

When users come to a website that supports notifications, they get a popup asking if they want to receive them. Google has also built in a popup, with which site administrators can promote the ‘add to homescreen’ function. By placing a shortcut on the home screen, users can find a site faster. The feature has been in Chrome for desktops for some time, which also supports it from version 42.