My first true post on the #fedi should be helpful to #server #admins.

I like being notified if my #backups fail, and I use #Gotify for my notifications. Perhaps you'll find it useful.

https://git.dmgd.monster/MNTLe/rsync_backup_gotify

I have been testing for the past few days three replacements for #Google's #Firebase notifications: #ntfy, #Gotify and #NextCloud's Unified Push project. A few observations after a bit of tinkering:

1. The idea behind #UnifiedPush is amazing. An open protocol to share push notifications over any asynchronous channel (websocket, Redis, MQTT etc.) is what open-source apps have needed for years. Sure, there will always be those who say "push notifications are a distraction, and I'm happy to ditch them". But individual choices/behaviors shouldn't shape the development of a technology - especially when people want a genuine open alternative to something that they like/need to use.

2. UnifiedPush support from individual apps is still scarce. So far I've only found the NextCloud app itself (which only supports UP-NextPush), #Fedilab and #Element. Support on #Tusky has allegedly been implemented in the latest release, but I haven't yet managed to make it work. Let's roll up our sleeves and make sure that more and more of the apps that we like support open notification services!

3. The notification providers' client apps themselves are still quite buggy, and documentation still very sparse. I have used UP-Example from F-Droid to test the UP services. Only ntfy managed to deliver notifications end-to-end to my devices. Gotify reported an "unknown error" without many details from the logs. UP-NextPush is still very unstable both on the client and server side and I couldn't manage to deliver any notifications.

4. The protocol (and the apps that implement it) needs to slowly be extended to cover as many as possible of the features that have been implemented in the past decade. Action buttons, icons from URLs, custom background images, updates to existing notifications etc.: a couple of these features have been (partly) implemented by 1-2 providers, but we need open standards (especially for action buttons and gestures) if we want to ensure inter-compatibility.

About mobile #notifications

Yes, I do obviously hate Google from the bottom of my heart. And I do also hate it that all the notifications from and to any Android device go through their Firebase engine. So the backlash again them (as well as #FDroid's choice of flagging Firebase usage as an anti-feature) is more than welcome.

But I think that things are getting too much out of hand. Nowadays apps like K-9 Mail and Tusky almost brag about their missing support for push notifications, as if it was a feature itself rather than a missing feature. And I've seen people write things like "oh, notifications are an annoying distraction anyway, good that we don't have them", or "thanks for staying pure".

I totally disagree with this stance. The ability to get nudged when we receive an sms, an email, or somebody mentions us on a chat or a social platform, is one of the core features of any mobile platform. Sure, one should have the ability to mute or disable specific notifications if they don't want to be bothered, but not providing the feature at all means that we (as a #FOSS community) are providing an incomplete mobile experience, and our apps are unlikely to get traction with anyone who isn't willing to trade usability for privacy.

So I have recently set up my servers running #ntfy, #Gotify and #NextCloud's unified push. I have some #Platypush automation routines that poll whatever I want to be notified about (emails, Mastodon activity, new content by a specific RSS feed or social profile...), and deliver them as notifications over these channels so my mobile can be up-to-date with everything.

Let's not forget that asynchronous push notifications aren't rocket science. All it takes for them to work is either a websocket or an HTTP stream endpoint - and both the technologies have been around for about two decades. And we've also got a standard (#UnifiedPush) to ensure compatibility.

So I'd like to invite more developers to build apps that come with UnifiedPush support. Yes, you guys deserve to be praised for saying no to Google and Firebase, but if you don't provide any alternative then you're just shipping a half-baked product. I can patch it for now by running a polling logic on another server and delivering messages over ntfy, but people who just want to be notified when they receive an email or get mentioned on Mastodon shouldn't run their own server-side logic to get things to work.

In the near future both #Element and #Tusky will support #UnifiedPush, hopefully!

Then it's time for a new service: #Gotify and we might additionally add the push plugin for our #nextcoud instance!

https://unifiedpush.org/users/apps/

Il va vraiment falloir que j'écrive un article sur #UptimeKuma et #Gotify un jour.

Hat hier wer Erfahrungen mit oder einen netten Artikel zu
#OpenPush #Gotify oder #Uniqush ?

Einige Projekte werden seit längerer Zeit nicht mehr weiterentwickelt und andere sprießen neu aus der Erde. Warum?
https://github.com/UnifiedPush/
https://github.com/NoProvider2Push/android

#UnifiedPush #NoProvider2Push
#Android #degoogle #FOSS