Chrome starts rolling out support for native Windows 10 notifications

After months of testing, Google is rolling out support for native Windows notifications in Chrome. If you're on Chrome version 68, that means you'll soon start to see the browser's notifications showing up in Windows 10's Action Center.

According to Peter Beverloo, who works on the Chrome team at Google and announced the rollout on Twitter (via Thurrott), native notifications are only available to half of all Chrome users at launch. The feature will be gradually enabled by default for all Chrome 68 users over the coming days and weeks. But if you want to get a head start, you can enable the feature by heading to chrome://flags and finding the "Native Notifications" option.

Chrome native notification

Once enabled, Chrome's own notification system will be replaced by notifications that live in the Action Center. The notifications will also respect your custom Windows 10 settings, including Focus Assist and any priorities you've set.

For those who prefer the old way of doing things, you can switch back to Chrome's own notification system at any time by disabling the "Native Notifications" flag in chrome://flags.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl

38 Comments
  • The start of a beautiful friendship? Doubt it very much!
  • Puke... I'll continue uninstalling it on every public and work PC i can get my hands on.
  • Agree, same as me. Dreadful browser, keeps crashing all the time ever tried.
  • Them something must be wrong with the machines you use it on. I have been using Chrome or a chrome clone for years, never crashed on me. Now and again a extension would go iffy, but that is once in the blue moon. I used to like Firefox many moons ago, but that lost the plot a long time ago.
    So Chrome it is.
  • I use Chrome portable in my word place. Still Win7. All machines will be Win10 later this year.
    We never turn PC off, we use sleep mode when we go home. Chrome was working fine till one day, I cannot wake my system up if I left Chrome open overnight. Now I have to close Chrome before I left office.
  • That sounds like user error.
  • It's Google's inability to develop a working browser. Tried on several Surface machines across the range. Awful touch experience, interference with Modern Standby mode, crashing extensions in particular adblockers not automatically updating in the background while not using the browser, freezing for no reason, constant call backs to Google IPs. Much worse since the W10 Spring 2018 update. No problem with MS Edge, MS IE, Monument Browser, even Firefox works way better.
  • I've never had issues with Chrome. Maybe your PC's are garbage. The only time i've had a browser crash is when i was drunk and decided to use edge....
  • I never had an issue with Edge. Perhaps because you were drunk.
  • Yeah Edge has bben better and more reliable than Chrome in my experience.
  • na them sabi... took them years to roll out support, pricks 😡
  • My question is why weren't they using the native Windows 10 notifications in the first place?
  • Lots of software don't, I use a fair bit of software uses their own notification. I myself have turned of Windows notification for 99.99% anyway.
  • For devs, it's just priority and timing (against other tasks), no one will against it. It's better to use it rather than having separate background process checking on a different interval, esp for NBs powered by battery. e.g. Fluent Design is finally available for win32, but no indie will do it (unless people are bored) cause there's no money involve and they have their UI already. The bigger the code base is, the bigger chance they won't implement it. Big player (complex business app) might do it at some point (but maybe quicker if they choose to build a new app).
  • Because they weren't sure if Microsoft will keep the notification centre or abandon it?
  • this is illogical.
  • Chrome was mean to be an OS inside an OS more or less with the Chrome App Store.
  • Because it existed before and was OS independent?
  • Haha, no no no thanks, no, no thank you, don't want chrome
  • Not going to help to monetize Google... Will never use any of their data mining products on my computer... They are no friend of Microsoft and I'm no friend of there's... I have a Blackberry KeyOne with all Google apps disabled apart from the play store...
  • But Windows data mining is fine, that's sound logic for you.
  • Lol, comparing Google on data mining MAKING MONEY FOR YOUR INFORMATION.
    It's not the same to know your issues and hardware.
  • Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that's all they are doing. Here's a piece of advice for you, if a Company can make money from it, they'll do it. Plain and simple.
  • Google makes 90%+ revenue selling you. Microsoft is not in that business which is the difference.
  • I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't monetizing the data they receive from users, but I still think your "piece of advice" doesn't hold true. For example, Apple collects plenty of data through a lot of its apps and systems, but it uses that data to determine whether certain settings, processes, etc, are being used and how they're being used, so it can further develop in meaningful ways for its users. Similarly, Microsoft appears to be more interested in collecting telemetry data to determine where crashes/slow-downs occur, which apps users use (and when), etc, and build on that information to give users better control and more meaningful options. A good example of this is Tablet Mode. Tablet Mode is, for the most part, garbage on Win10. On my Surface Book2, my hope is that, by using it for extremely specific use-cases and nothing else so Microsoft uses the telemetry data to determine what types of changes to make for this to be more usable for users. Now, Microsoft does also own Bing, which makes money from advertisements. This could very well mean they benefit from sharing their collected data between the two services. However, it also means that they, like Google, do not want any other companies to have access to their data, so they make all the decisions on how that data gets used.
  • Whatever helps people sleep at night. The NSA has direct access to Apple's ISPs.
  • @jams_11, that could be true that the NSA has access to all this data at all the big tech companies whether they know about it or not, but that doesn't change at all that Google is in the business of selling its users to its customers (advertisers). Microsoft and Apple are in the business (primarily) of selling products and services to their users. Or to simplify: At Google, users are the product they sell to their customers. At MS and Apple, users are the customers. All 3 companies are reasonably loyal to their customers, it's just that their idea of who is their customer varies significantly.
  • Me too! Same here, mate =D
  • i used Google Chrome When it first launched as alternative to Internet Explorer and I think it was awesome. but nowadays it's too resource hungry so I've turned to Edge 2 years ago and never look back.
  • Same here. Unlike you I tried edge in the initial release of Windows 10 and few times in the later major updates but never suited me. But with the April Update, it is awesome it has actually improved a lot. I recommend everybody to try out edge who has April Update installed.
  • I have been using Edge since the the insider build for Windows 10, before it was launched and liked it, but still believed Chrome was better. That was up until last year when Microsoft did some great strides with the browser. I still use Chrome for one or two websites which only work well on Chrome, but I predominantly use Edge for everything and have the phone version which I love. I set up native notifications just to see how it works, but it won't make me switch. I have to say though that I tried the new Firefox and it works really well. Still won't switch over though.
  • If it only works on Chrome, it doesn't deserve our business... The only time I use Chrome now is if I absolutely need to cast video from my laptop to my TV. I usually use my phone for this, but there are times when my phone's dead or in another room and using th ethe laptop is easier.
  • What... This thing has access to Notification center now? Microsoft should block that 😀
  • Chrome is resource hungry.
  • Pass. The chrome browser is a parasite. Every pc or laptop I come across that runs chrome is more infected than a house with wood rot it takes several scans with hit man pro (cloud av), trend micro house call, hijackthis, malwarebytes, bitdefender rootkit tools to ensure they are thoroughly disinfected (several days). Compared to laptops or pcs running firefox or Edge or Internet Explorer, they take 1/3 of the time to weed out the malware - granted the time scale is with heavily fragmented mechanical drives. Every laptop or PC I fix I set up Firefox as a default browser with ublock origin - previously used adblock plus before it was sold to a consortium. Over a 6 month period, the PC/laptops had few instances of malware. However setting chrome back as default browser over a 6 month period... The same laptop/pc was always choked with malware (clean install and new hdd). Hence why I feel the chrome browser is a parasite. I have never come across a pc or laptop that used chrome that wasn't plagued to the brim with malware and adware. Speaking of Edge, that browser still needs hellova alot of work. Still get rendering issues especially with older laptops with switchable graphics.
  • Things are finally starting to happen for Windows. Slowly, but they're happening. Unfortunately they're happening a couple years to late for Windows Mobile.
  • I had Google as my browser for some time after getting Windows 10, as Edge was very unstable in it's early form. I'm using Edge daily now though, Chrome is still installed but I rarely need it now
  • I'm not sure how to perceive this news... It sounds good for MS/Windows, and bad at the same time.