How to Disable Notifications in Popular Browsers?

Website owners show important information as a notification when viewing their site. There are many ways to show the notifications like overlay, pop-up or modal window. Generally, websites use cookies to track the user action on the site and trigger the notification accordingly. For example, the exit intend trigger will show the pop-up notifications when the user moves the mouse out of the browser’s viewing area. Almost all popular browsers we use today allow websites to show notifications. Sometimes, the notifications may annoy you when reading the content. If you do not like, you can block the notification displayed by browsers.

Examples of Notifications

Here are some examples of notifications that all modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari supports.

• Push notification – this appears when you open a webpage and asks you to subscribe the feed to notify you whenever the website owner publishes new content on the site.
• Pop-up – time or action based trigger that opens in a new browser tab.
• Modal – a pop-up that appears within the browser tab having a close button get rid of it.
• Overlay – a slide that overlays to hide the content and show a notification. Generally closes by clicking anywhere or have the close button.

How to Disable Notifications in Browsers?

Here is how to prevent the notifications showing in the browsers.

1. Google Chrome on Desktop

In order to block the notification messages in the Google Chrome browser, follow these steps.

• Open Chrome browser and click on the menu button available at the top right corner. You can open this menu by pressing “Alt + F” shortcut keys in Windows PC.
• In the drop-down menu available, select “Settings” option.
• At the bottom of the list available, click on “Advanced” settings.
• After that, in the “Privacy and security” section, select “Site Settings”.
• In the “Notifications” section, select “Ask before sending (recommended)”. This will make sure Chrome asks for your confirmation with any push notifications from websites.
• When you are in “Privacy and security” settings section, scroll down and click on the “Pop-ups and redirects”. You can block the pop-up notifications here.

As you can notice, Chrome allows to completely block the pop-ups. However, it does not allow you to block the push notifications. You can only setup the website to ask before subscribing to the notification.

2. Google Chrome on Mobile

Follow the below steps, if you are using Chrome mobile app.

• Tap on Chrome app to open.
• Go to the “Settings” by tapping on the three dots button.
• Go to “Content Settings” and enable “Block Pop-ups” option.

3. Firefox on Desktop

Similar to Chrome, Firefox browser also allows you to block both push notifications and pop-ups.

• Launch Firefox and go to “about:preferences” page.
• Click on the “Privacy & Security” tab on and scroll down to “Permissions” section.
• You can enable the checkbox to block pop-ups.
• In order to block push notifications, click on the “Settings” button against the “Notifications” option.
• You can add view the list of previously blocked websites.
• Enable “Block new requests asking to allow notifications” option to block any new notification requests from websites.

4. Edge Browser on Desktop

On Microsoft Edge, click on the three dots on the top right corner to open “Settings”. Go to “Privacy & security” section and enable “Block pop-ups” option.

7. Apple Safari on Mac

Follow the below instructions on Apple’s Safari browser in Mac.

• Go to “Safari > Preferences…” option.
• Under the “Websites” tab, go to “Notifications” section.
• Enable the checkbox for the option “Allow websites to ask for permission to send notifications”.
• Under “Pop-up Windows” section select “Block” option against “When visiting other websites”.

8. Safari on iOS and iPadOS

On a Safari app in iOS and iPadOS, you can tap on the “Settings” app and navigate to “Safari” option. Scroll down and enable “Block Pop-ups” option.

Final Words

Unfortunately, browsers did not offer settings to block all types of notifications. You can only block push and pop-up notifications in browsers. If you want to block overlay and modal type of notifications then look for pop-up blocker extensions.