Sure sounds like you’ve enabled what’s known as Google Chrome “Push” Notifications, a technology that lets Web sites to which you’ve granted permission the ability to pop up little notification windows on your computer even if you’re not actually on that site. Cool if you want to keep track of what’s going on with, say, Pinterest or Facebook, but not so cool if you like to use the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy!
Weirdly, for such an important and overtly visible feature, getting to where you can control it or turn it off from within Google Chrome is quite non-trivial. Indeed, it’s rather a sleuthing task. Ready to learn how it’s done?
To start, so we’re on the same page here, a typical Chrome Push Notification on a Mac system (this one’s from Facebook):
Apparently Irene’s left a comment. Okay. I can click on the notification to jump to the right spot in Facebook (handy!), I can click the ‘x’ to get rid of it and if I’m fast enough, I can click on the gear icon on the lower right and jump right to the correct spot (as we’ll see later in the article).
But let’s say you just want to use the Google Chrome Settings to find and fine-tune your Notification settings. To do that, choose Preferences… from the Chrome menu (or use the keyboard shortcut Cmnd-; if you prefer). Lots of preferences and settings, including these:
Look around, however, and there’s nothing about Notifications. There is this inviting little link at the bottom of the “Settings” section, however:
Click on that and lots more options show up. And none of those are about Push Notifications:
Completely unobviously, it turns out that clicking on the Content settings… button in the “Privacy” section is the right choice, however. Do so.
Even here, however, you have to scroll down and down to finally get to the right section:
Ah, finally you can see how to disable all notifications, allow specific sites, or allow all sites (which would be a bit crazy!) Much more interestingly, click on the button Manage exceptions…
And, finally, that’s how you fine tune things: for any given site you can block or allow access, you can set up specific permissions if you want, say, Facebook to be able to send you notifications (or not). Tweak and tune it as you wish, then click “Done“.
And you’re done.
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