Firefox will largely block notifications from websites in Nightly version

Firefox blocks requests from websites to show notifications by default in the latest Nightly release this month. Mozilla is looking for ways to curb these requests, which are often perceived as spam.

Mozilla suppresses all notification permission requests in the first two weeks of April, unless they are the result of a mouse click or keystroke. In the following two weeks, notification requests will only be expressed in the form of an icon in the address bar. Only when a user clicks on it does the familiar permission pop-up appear. The test will run from April 1 to 29 to be precise.

According to Mozilla, the problem with the notification permission pop-ups lies in the fact that it is not always clear how the website functions better when the notifications are turned on, or that a better user experience is not the goal at all. Another problem would be that sites ask for it too quickly, leaving users unable to make a choice and therefore go for ‘no’, even if the notifications would improve the user experience.

According to the browser maker, less than three percent of all notification requests result in a ‘yes’. Nineteen percent would even result in users leaving the website immediately.

Mozilla will also collect data with the release version of the browser. This kind of data collection on the release channel is an exception, Mozilla says, and will happen to a small percentage of users. Mozilla will do this in Firefox 67, but that is still in the beta channel. So maybe the developer asks users for permission first.