When will Edge support userVisibleOnly: false for webpush like Chrome does?

[Erik Rothoff Andersson (erkie)]

Since MV3 breaks the possibility to have sockets open for realtime notifications in our extension, Chrome added support for the userVisibleOnly: false option on registration.pushManager.subscribe. Apparently Edge does not support this.

What is the recommended workaround for realtime push for Edge, and why is it different from Chrome?

const subscribe = await registration.pushManager.subscribe({
  userVisibleOnly: false,
  applicationServerKey: serverKey
});

Results in:

Uncaught NotAllowedError: Registration failed - permission denied

This code works in Chrome.

[ManikanthMSFT (ManikanthMSFT)]

Hey Erik Rothoff Andersson (@erkie), we are looking into this and will let you know as soon as we have an update.

[Erik Rothoff Andersson (erkie)]

ManikanthMSFT (@ManikanthMSFT) any news?

[Venkat (venkatasai5171)]

Hello erkie ,

Currently, Microsoft Edge does not support the userVisibleOnly: false option for push subscriptions. This means that silent/background push notifications are not supported in Edge, and attempting to use this option may result in a permission error.

As a supported approach, we recommend using userVisibleOnly: true and ensuring that each push event results in a visible notification to the user. This aligns with Edge’s implementation of the Push API, which requires user-visible notifications for push messages.

At present, there is no confirmed timeline for supporting userVisibleOnly: false in Edge. We recommend designing your implementation accordingly to ensure compatibility.

For more details, reference document: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/progressive-web-apps/how-to/push

[Erik Rothoff Andersson (erkie)]

How are we supposed to support use cases where a long lived socket connection worked in MV2 in the MV3 migration? We have yet been able to upgrade our Edge extension due to this gap in functionality in MV3 Edge?

[Venkat (venkatasai5171)]

Hi Erik Rothoff Andersson (@erkie) ,

As a workaround, you may consider implementing user-visible push notifications (userVisibleOnly: true), periodic polling of your backend service, WebSocket connections while the extension UI is active, or a hybrid synchronization model combining push notifications and server-side update checks. The most appropriate solution will depend on your real-time requirements and user experience considerations.

Regards,
Venkat

[Erik Rothoff Andersson (erkie)]

Why not just support uservisible: false like chrome? Why have a worse experience for Edge than Chrome?