Valid explanation or bogus excuse?
You would think that adding support in Chrome for notifications to appear in the Action Center for Windows 10 would be an easy "Yes" for Google, but you'd also be wrong. As it turns out, Google has no intention of using the Action Center, at least not anytime soon.
The revelation came in response to a feature request on Google's Chromium support forum.
"Thanks for the input and ideas! We've discussed this quite a bit and decided not to integrate with the system level notification at this time," a Chromium forum moderator posted. "It would create a weird state where Chrome behaves differently on Win 10 than on Win 7/8 and developers of extensions/websites wouldn't know what they design for. Maybe we can revisit it in a few years when most users are on Win 10."
A smiley face was added to the end of the post for good measure, though it didn't prevent users from frowning on Google's decision.
"What kind of a stupid reason is that? Developers of extensions/websites do NOT NEED to know what they design for. Notifications are notifications. Where they show up on the host OS is not a concern for the extensions/websites developers," one of the forum users posted in response.
Several others chimed in with contempt and confusion at Google's "weird decision" to not use the Action Center in Windows 10.
"You're basically electing to clutter the user's interface by using a separate notification system for Chrome, where you could be unifying it with the system. Wasn't the whole point of the Chrome running in the background thing unifying it with the system?," another user posted.
The reaction to Google's decision prompted a followup response by the moderator speaking on Google's behalf. The shortened version is that "on Win 10, using the native notification system would mean that all notification could show briefly before disappearing but they could also not show, depending on a user setting. All notifications would show as coming from Chrome. They would not be actionable, and so on."
Former Maximum PC contributing writer and current PCWorld senior editor Brad Chacos thinks the decision has more to do with an ongoing feud between Google and Microsoft, and less to do with technical reasons. Chacos points out that Google and Microsoft have a contentious history when it comes to feature support, such as the time Microsoft's native Calendar app removed Google Calendar support in Windows 8.1, or when Microsoft released its own version of YouTube for Windows Phone to counter Google's refusal to release apps for its servers on the competing platform.
What do you think -- does Google have a valid reason for not supporting Chrome notifications in Windows 10's Action Center, or are users once again getting caught in the crosshairs of a feud between two tech titans?
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