Google wants to power up the Web with push notifications and home icons

Google's Chrome 42 brings push notifications and "add to home screen" prompts to Web pages to try to bring some of the best features of apps to the Web. The Chrome 42 feature has hit the stable channel and is rolling out to everyone. Before the launch, the Chrome team talked to prominent Web developers, and the reaction to both of these features was more positive than they expected. "Normally with Web platform features, we talk about it and [Web developers] are like 'oh, cool, ok, talk to me in two years once it ships in every browser'," Google employee Alex Komoroske said, "but we've seen a lot of interest from early adopters." And sure enough, Google's Chromium Blog rattles off the lineup of early adopters, and there are some big companies in there: "Beyond the Rack, eBay, Facebook, FanSided, Pinterest, Product Hunt, and VICE News." Facebook is a particularly big one.

A lot of users want notifications and home screen access to Facebook, but don't want to deal with the app's lengthy list of permissions. This has led to things like "Tinfoil for Facebook," which is a self-described "wrapper for the Facebook mobile site." Chrome 42's new features pretty much eliminate the need for this app. Soon Facebook will roll out push notifications and home screen prompts, and those who want Facebook without the Facebook app can get it. It's easy to come up with other use cases, too. An airline site could send you push notifications about flight changes, or eBay could send you updates about item bids. So does Google believe Web apps are the future? Which should developers use? "There's native apps, and there's Web, and we want to empower developers to build awesome experiences no matter what platform or choice they make," Komoroske said.