Finally, an answer to why Firefox needs GCM push services: https://forum.f-droid.org/t/making-it-easier-for-f-droid-to-package-mozilla-firefox/1649/13
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [F-Droid Forum] [Apps] Making it easier for F-Droid to package Mozilla Firefox Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2017 18:33:53 +0000 From: Nick Alexander <[email protected]> [quote="hans, post:12, topic:1649, full:true"] @nalexander about Google Play Services, what is the push stuff used for? I never understand why Firefox needed its own push services. But I do understand why push requires GCM on Android. [/quote] This I can answer, 'cuz I built most of this integration for Fennec :) The Firefox product family wants push services to support the [Web Push HTML5 spec](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Push_API). This is a big part of the Progressive Web Apps initiative that aims to make developing rich App experiences possible using the Web Platform. Firefox for Desktop runs its own custom push service called `autopush` that keeps long-lived Web Sockets open. As you surely know, that's not viable on a phone -- the OS is best positioned to do that work, potentially using side-channels from existing (carrier) channels. Therefore, Firefox for Android uses an `autopush` bridge to Google Cloud Messaging (and eventually will have to migrate to Firebase Cloud Messaging), and Firefox for iOS uses an `autopush` bridge to Apple Push Notification Service. _______________________________________________ List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/guardian-dev To unsubscribe, email: [email protected]
