If you prefer surfing the internet with your computer, Android device, or iOS device then you should have seen a web notification pop up on your notification bar at some point. These web notifications can become very annoying especially when it becomes frequent from different sites, most times including sites we want nothing to do with and just like everyone else when you don’t want something, it’s natural to seek a way out. That’s is why in today’s guide, I’ll be teaching you how to disable web notifications.
Why am I receiving these notifications?
This is a really great question because for some people they don’t know how they got to the point where they started receiving series of notifications (also known as push notifications) from different sites or a particular site.
The reason you are receiving these notifications is likely because upon visiting those sites, you must have tapped or clicked on Agree to receive the latest news and updates from those sites and because of that singular action, each time the website drops a new blog post, you’d be notified whether or not you are interested in the contents of the post.
Well, if you unknowingly put yourself in that situation or you knew probably because you were enjoying the contents of the website and you no longer find the contents interesting, whatever the case may be by the end of today’s guide you would have learnt how to disable web notifications.
How to Disable Web Notifications
Under this section, I’ll be teaching you how to disable web notifications (push notifications) on your favourite browsers like Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari.
How to Disable Web Notifications on Chrome
To learn how to disable web notifications on chrome, follow the set of instructions outlined below:
- Open your Chrome browser.
- Click on the menu icon (the three vertical dots) found at the upper-right corner of the screen.
- From the menu click on Settings.
- Navigate to the bottom of the screen and click on Advanced.
- On the Advanced page click on Site Settings found under the Privacy and Security
- Click on Notifications.
- Finally, click on the toggle button next to Ask before sending (recommended).
Once you do this, the toggle button’s colour will change from blue to grey and the text will change to Blocked, indicating that you have learnt how to block web notifications on the Chrome browser.
Additionally, you may not want to block all notifications from coming into your system. For instance, you may still prefer to receive notifications from Facebook, Gmail, etc. So you don’t miss anything important. In that case, all you’d have to do would be to whitelist those specific websites you don’t want to be blocked on chrome and to do this, follow the set of instructions outlined below:
- Go to the Chrome’s Settings
- Click on the Add button next to the word Allow.
- Finally, type in the site URL you’d like to whitelist. For example, facebook.com/*.
The Asterisk is used to command chrome to allow all notifications that will come from the site you entered, in our case Facebook.
How to Disable Web Notifications on Mozilla Firefox
To learn how to disable web notifications on Mozilla Firefox, follow the set of instructions outlined below:
- Open your Mozilla Firefox app.
- Click on the menu icon (the three vertical dots) found at the upper right corner of your screen.
- Click on Options.
- Select Privacy & Security.
- Scroll down and click on the Settings button that is found next to notifications under the permissions header.
- Click on the check box next to Block new requests asking to allow notifications.
Once you have gotten to this point, you have successfully learnt how to disable web notifications on Mozilla Firefox. Now, for websites you have already permitted to send you push notifications, on that screen, click on them and afterwards click the Remove Website button. If you’d like to do the same for all the websites found there then click on the Remove All Website button.
Unfortunately, unlike Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox doesn’t give users the ability to whitelist some sites from the settings. So, if you have sites you’d like to whitelist in future all disabling the web notifications on the browser, all you have to do would be to enable it, go to the desired site and click Allow when a notification pops up within the site asking you to either Allow or Deny latest news and updates from the site. Once you are done you can disable web notifications again but this time the site will be automatically whitelisted.
How to Disable Web Notifications on Safari
To learn how to disable web notifications on Safari, follow the set of instructions outlined below:
- Open your Safari browser.
- Click on Preferences found at the top bar menu.
- Click on Websites.
- On the left-hand menu, click on Notifications.
- Here you’ll find all the sites that you have requested to send you push notifications. You can either Allow or Deny for any of the sites listed there.
- Finally, go to the bottom of the window and uncheck the Allow websites to ask for permission to send push notifications
Alternatively, if you’d rather prefer to mute the notifications. Then follow the instructions outlined below:
- Go to your System Preference
- Click on Notifications.
- Locate Safari from the list found on the left side of the screen. Once you do, click on it.
- Under the section Safari alert style click on None. Doing this will affect the banners that appear when you receive a notification.
- Finally, you can choose to uncheck any or all of the boxes for Show notifications on the lock screen, Show in Notifications Center, Badge app icon, and Play sound for notifications.
Asides from muting the notifications, you can choose to silence your system temporarily. If you prefer this, click on the Do Not Disturb found at the top left corner. Fill in the time or the circumstance you’d like to activate the silence all notifications feature.