Devs - Please Use UnifiedPush

Devs – Please Use UnifiedPush

January 13, 2022

Problem: Android users can't receive push notifications from most services except through Google.

Push notification is the ability for your phone to display instant notifications from a server. Apple and Google made their push notification services centralised, so all the apps they distribute and all their users are dependent on them for any push notification. Great for the megacorps. Not good for those users who care about their privacy or their freedom to choose.

Push notification isn't inherently a centralised concept. FOSS decentralised push is here: UnifiedPush.org

“UnifiedPush is a set of specifications and tools that lets the user choose how push notifications are delivered. All in a free and open source way.”

UnifiedPush is gaining traction initially among FOSS apps, and can certainly be used by non-FOSS apps too, once their developers see how this benefits privacy-conscious and freedom-conscious users.

Andrew Powell explains the issue very well in a letter to app developers:

“Dear Privacy Aware Android App Devs – Please Use UnifiedPush”

If you develop apps or services that might use push, please read it!

p.s. UnifiedPush is growing

“I imagine with increased adoption the distributor options would also increase in number.”

Indeed: in the short time since that letter was written, UnifiedPush has already gained another server and another distributor-app (both from ntfy.sh), and another end-user app (FindMyDevice).

Will yours be next?

U-P support in Molly (Signal app fork) is ~~in development~~ now done! (2023)

julian

Devs – Please Use UnifiedPush

p.s. UnifiedPush is growing

Read More about UnifiedPush