Chrome will make website notification requests less irritating

Mozilla isn't the only one waging war against annoying website notification requests. Google has announced that Chrome 80 will show a "quieter" notification interface that won't seriously disrupt what you're doing. Whether you're on desktop or mobile, you'll get a brief, relatively non-intrusive alert (with a bell icon to see what you missed) instead of the usual pull-down. You'll have to enable this more respectful approach manually at first, but Google said it would eventually activate the feature automatically for both people who often block notifications as well as sites with "very low" opt-in rates.

The updated browser is expected in February.

On top of all this, Google plans to crack down on another part of the problem: sites that misuse notifications. The company warned that it will enable "additional enforcement" against sites that use notifications for ads, malware or "deceptive purposes." More details of what that involves will have to wait until later in the year, although it has previously gone so far as to block or issue warnings for sites that run afoul of its policies. In other words, sites that insist on misusing notifications risk losing many visitors unless they shape up.