To send you a push notification, an app requires a special token specific to that app and your device, kinda like an API key, which can only be generated for a device using Google Play Services. Without that token, a push notification cannot be sent. These tokens expire, so if you used Google Play Services and just turned it off, push notifications will still get sent into the ether - but never delivered - until the token expires, at which point notifications can't be sent anymore. Badly developed apps might still try to send push notifications with expired tokens, I have no idea what Google servers would do with that, but I'd guess they would just discard it immediately.
Edit: Sorry, I think I misunderstood your question. If you don't have Google Play Services enabled but your friend does and messages you, no, a push notification won't be sent, but if you message them, one will be sent to them.
I thought you were asking if you just disabled notifications on your phone if that would prevent push notifications from being sent. I'll leave my original answer in case someone else has that question.
It depends on what exactly you mean, but usually not. If you mean in your phone's notifications management settings, that does not affect the push notifications being sent to Google/Apple servers, that's just a local setting to decide how your phone handles it.
Some apps, though rarely, allow you to disable push notifications from being sent. If it exists, this is inside a settings screen in the app itself or on the app provider's website somewhere. Generally, only privacy-conscious apps provide such settings.
It depends on the app. Some apps do (or can be configured to) indeed send “empty”/blank notifications which just notify you that you’ve received a new message from an app, but not from whom, or what the message contains.
However most apps by default will contain more data, such as who the message is from, and some/all of the sent message body.
If you get a push notification on your phone, everything you see in that notification must by definition pass through the push notification service.
I'd disagree with "most messengers" doing that, in my experience, most don't do it by default. Signal is a pretty rare exception to do so by default.
Yes, I know! Sorry for the confusion, I just wanted to take the opportunity to raise awareness about a privacy issue that lots of people aren't aware of
If you use GrapheneOS with push notifications, after enabling Google Play Services, those push notifications are relayed through Google servers. Most apps will include message sender and text in the push notification, meaning that data will pass through Google servers and they can read it.
If you are a GrapheneOS user and leave Google Play Services disabled - which they are by default - you have nothing to worry about, but notifications are generally delayed and use more battery as a downside.
So it'll use TLS encryption, meaning that others on your network won't be able to snoop it, but not end-to-end encryption, so Google/Apple servers will see the plaintext of the push notification content.
This is a limitation of the specific implementation of how push notifications work. End-to-end encrypted push notifications would be technically possible but it would require Apple/Google to make it possible. Developers can't implement it without getting you to run some services yourself, either self-hosted or a long-running background process on your phone, which would be a battery drain.
The link you shared isn't really relevant to push notifications specifically.
The best happy medium we can get is to send empty/blank push notifications, which some apps including Signal offer as an option, but you often need to set it that way in the settings. I think Signal does that by default, but very few apps do.
It depends on the app. Some apps do (or can be configured to) indeed send "empty"/blank notifications which just notify you that you've received a new message from an app, but not from whom, or what the message contains.
However most apps by default will contain more data, such as who the message is from, and some/all of the sent message body.
You might be getting pull notifications, that's generally the workaround for push notifications being disabled - it generally increases battery usage because it forces the app to stay open in the background.
If you don't use Google Play Services, you don't get push notifications, so yes. Libre reimplementations of Google Play Services such as Gapps etc. or alternative push notification providers do not circumvent this issue, except possibly self-hosted push notification providers. This approach is really rare though and limited generally to very few apps.
It always bears repeating, push notifications are not private, neither for Android, GrapheneOS, nor iOS, even if you use end-to-end encryption. If you are privacy conscious, you should either use settings to hide sensitive data from push notifications or turn them off altogether.
There’s not a lot of people who’d will come out and say “its good that Schuner is ignoring literal warcrimes”, so it’s obviously the latter.
I wish I had your optimism. I've argued a lot with liberals, centrists and the like who would argue that circles are square to defend the Democrat establishment in the past, so a completely incoherent position and a complete lack of actual values and beliefs doesn't even surprise me that much.
Still, there was enough doubt in there for me to ask, so I suppose that's good!
We need to replace these people with actual true progressives. Mainstream democrats are blue fascists. They are not meeting this moment. They must be removed from the party. Here's how:
Organize, protest and elect. Emphasis on organize and protest.
Get as involved as you can with activist efforts locally.
Organize, network, focus on building solidarity. Join or form a union. Join the IWW.
Vote at primaries and elections for the best candidate, even if you doubt they can win.
Don't punch down.
Don't punch left.
Educate yourself, politically.
Push for voting reform and for anything that breaks the two-party system
I don’t think people are saying you personally are a bot, but you’re falling for narratives pushed by bots.
People call me a bot quite a bit, sometimes a shill too, or a Russian troll. In reality, I'm a gay autistic over-educated furry from Scotland with hot takes firmly backed by strongly held values - that we should always work to minimize suffering and maximize happiness for ourselves and for all living things.
I am not falling for anyone's narratives. I arrive at all of my strongly held positions after a great deal of thought, consideration and evaluation. I am the person who speaks out against the popular narrative long before it becomes acceptable or even a matter of debate. I'm usually right years too early, sometimes decades. Maybe even centuries, on some topics, especially around youth liberation and anarchism. I have been an outspoken anti-zionist since 2010, for example.
I will never say that Trump winning was a good thing. It was a fucking tragedy. But if Kamala had won in 2024, she would have done nothing to prevent the material conditions which are responsible for the rise of fascism. Republicans, MAGA, and fascists would all see the continued failures of liberalism and the Democratic party to address massively growing inequality. They would become more and more reactionary, aggressive and extreme. What if, at that point, an intelligent, charismatic fascist leader appeared, and united that base? Someone who doesn't say the quiet part out loud, who did all the shit that Trump did, but was able to convince Americans that it was necessary, or even good?
absolutely zero harm has been prevented
The full outcome of Trump's premiership remains to be seen. Will the base of the Democratic party finally wake up and recognize that harm reduction narratives are a total and complete failure and demand more than the bare minimum from their electeds? Will an anti-zionist finally be elected in 2028? Or, dare I even dream it, an anti-imperialist? A socialist?
New York City got their first socialist muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, which one may argue was a leftist reaction to Trump.
We are also witnessing the collapse of the American Empire, massively accelerated by Trump.
We need to stop thinking in terms of harm reduction on an election-to-election basis, and start thinking in terms of the election after this one, at the very least. How can we use our vote not tactically, but strategically?
And remember, our vote is the weakest form of power we have. Our power comes from our connections and our labor.
Organize, protest and elect. Emphasis on organize and protest.
Get as involved as you can with activist efforts locally.
Organize, network, focus on building solidarity. Join or form a union. Join the IWW.
Vote at primaries and elections for the best candidate, even if you doubt they can win.
Don't punch down.
Don't punch left.
Educate yourself, politically.
Push for voting reform and for anything that breaks the two-party system
I've been warning people about what was coming as far back as 2010, when I was a teenager. I have been telling people that "vote blue no matter who" would lead here, and people just derided me, called me a troll, I have been told endlessly that I'm making a slippery slope argument.
When Bernie's would-be victory was transmuted into Hillary's defeat, that should have been a wake-up call for you. Your politicians are playing you like a fiddle. They would rather have fascism than even the mildest social democracy.
History has vindicated leftists, again and again and again and again. Liberals, centrists, democrats, they are either in denial, or they're fully onboard with fascism.
Please, for once, listen to us. You need to help us stop this shit. We can't just keep going on voting for the lesser evil forever.
Organize, protest and elect. Emphasis on organize and protest.
Get as involved as you can with activist efforts locally.
Organize, network, focus on building solidarity. Join or form a union. Join the IWW.
Vote at primaries and elections for the best candidate, even if you doubt they can win.
Don't punch down.
Don't punch left.
Educate yourself, politically.
Push for voting reform and for anything that breaks the two-party system.
To send you a push notification, an app requires a special token specific to that app and your device, kinda like an API key, which can only be generated for a device using Google Play Services. Without that token, a push notification cannot be sent. These tokens expire, so if you used Google Play Services and just turned it off, push notifications will still get sent into the ether - but never delivered - until the token expires, at which point notifications can't be sent anymore. Badly developed apps might still try to send push notifications with expired tokens, I have no idea what Google servers would do with that, but I'd guess they would just discard it immediately.