Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Notification permission prompts
Raised as a usability problem by 11 people on Hacker News over 9 years (2017–2025), in 8 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Unwanted notification permission prompts keep appearing on websitesUnreviewed
20172026- Sites can pop up notification permission requests before the user has any reason to accept them2025-06-13
- Random sites ask for notification permission, so users reflexively deny every request2022-05-26
- Constant prompts make people accidentally sign up for unwanted notifications2022-05-26
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 11 complaints
- Sites can pop up notification permission requests before the user has any reason to accept them2025-06-13
- Cannot schedule a notification to fire at a set time like native apps2023-11-27
- Clicking 'not now' on a fake prompt still leads to repeated asking; real opt-out is hidden2022-08-05
- Random sites ask for notification permission, so users reflexively deny every request2022-05-26
- Constant prompts make people accidentally sign up for unwanted notifications2022-05-26
- Pushes users who only want to try the app into a misleading choice2022-02-03
- Popup interrupts reading after three paragraphs, forcing the reader to leave2021-10-17
- Websites nag repeatedly with notification permission prompts, like old popups2019-04-02
- Websites keep showing unwanted notification permission prompts, which are as annoying as popups2019-04-02
- Notification permission dialog pops up immediately without prior user input, pushing people into it2019-04-02
- Permission popups for notifications appear constantly and steal focus, interrupting users2017-10-09