Website notifications are a plague on the modern internet. Usually they ask your permission to receive automatic updates from specific websites, but many people find this merely an annoyance that drives their web browsing. To alleviate this, Microsoft recently added a feature to the Edge browser that automatically silenced notifications. The only problem? This was confusing for the few users who wanted to communicate with them.
Now Microsoft says it’s taking a new approach: with the latest Edge 88 version, it’s a huge amount of data on how users handle the pop-ups. The company will follow the options people choose – to allow, block, ignore or completely reject notifications – and compile the information to an annoying score. If the number is too high, Edge will automatically silence notifications from that site. Microsoft says that it will continue to customize this feature during the trial period, and that it will also receive feedback from users.
“We will use regularly updated data so that websites can provide the full request to their users if they get better acceptance rates from their users,” the Edge team wrote in a blog post. “It should be a strong motivator for websites to follow best practices and request notifications when they think users are likely to accept. can continue to measure website should provide the complete introduction with enhanced user experience. “
If you’re a curmudgeon like me and just want every site to crash, you can also use the “Silent notification requests” option in Edge’s settings. Microsoft has also recently added some other notification customizations: Edge can send push notifications even when it’s close (starting with version 85). The browser can now also automatically reject Windows 10 notifications in full screen without you having to do anything.