[Tip] Enable or Disable Windows Native Notifications in Firefox

UPDATE: This article was initially posted in year 2018 to help Firefox users in enabling or disabling native Windows notifications feature. Today (March 14, 2023), Mozilla team has released Firefox 111.0 version which comes with the native notifications feature enabled by default. If you don’t like Firefox notifications displaying using Action Center in Windows 10 or Windows 11, this article will help you in disabling the new native notifications feature and restoring old classic Firefox’s built-in notification system.

All web browsers use their own built-in notification functionality to show web/push notifications sent by websites. If you are using Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating system, you might be aware of the built-in notification center known as Action Center which shows native notifications in form of Toasts to users. Action Center shows all notifications such as system alerts, apps notifications, messages, etc to Windows 10/11 users.

Now some web browsers have started using Windows 10/11 built-in Action Center to show websites notifications instead of their own notification functionality. First Google Chrome started showing website notifications in Windows 10 Action Center which can be enabled/disabled using following tutorial:

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[Tip] Enable/Disable Google Chrome Notifications to Show in Windows 10 Action Center

Now the latest version of Mozilla Firefox web browser comes with Windows 10 Action Center support. If enabled, Firefox shows all websites notifications in Windows 10’s Action Center. Users can also disable this new feature if they don’t like it. We told you about it long time back in UPDATE 125 when this feature was under development and testing.

Mozilla Firefox Showing Notifications Using built-in Notification System:

Mozilla_Firefox_Default_Classic_Notification.png

Mozilla Firefox Showing Notifications Using Windows 10 Action Center:

Mozilla_Firefox_New_Native_Notification_Windows_10_Action_Center.png

Today in this tutorial, we’ll tell you how to enable or disable Mozilla Firefox notifications to show in Windows 10 Action Center.

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If your Firefox browser doesn’t show notifications in Windows 10 Action Center, you can force it to use Action Center to show native notifications. On the other hand, if your Firefox browser shows notifications in Windows 10 Action Center but you don’t like this behavior, you can disable Windows 10 Action Center support and force Firefox to use its own old classic notification center to show websites notifications.

Customizing the Windows 10 Action Center’s notification support in Firefox can be done using its hidden secret advanced configuration “about:config” page.

Following steps will help you in turning on/off Windows 10 Action Center’s notification support in Mozilla Firefox web browser:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “I accept the risk!” button.

2. Now type alerts in Search filter box and it’ll show following preference in the window:

alerts.useSystemBackend

3. If the preference value is set to true, it means Firefox will show websites notifications in Windows 10 Action Center. If the value is set to false, it means Firefox will show notifications in its own notification system.

Enable_Disable_Mozilla_Firefox_Native_Notification.png

To modify the preference, double-click on alerts.useSystemBackend preference and change its value. Alternatively, you can right-click on the preference and select Toggle option.

To enable Windows 10/11 Action Center support i.e. show native notifications in Action Center, set the value to true.

To disable Windows 10/11 Action Center support i.e. show old style notifications in Firefox classic notification system, set the value to false.

That’s it. The changes apply immediately.

PS: If you are wondering what the other preference alerts.showFavicons shown in above screenshot does in Firefox? It shows website favicon in classic notifications shown in Firefox’s own notification center. It has no effect if you have enabled Windows 10 Action Center support in Firefox.

Also Check:

[Tip] Disable Website Notifications Pop-ups in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Opera

Disable or Remove “Extensions” Button from Firefox Toolbar

[Tip] Show “Go” Button in Mozilla Firefox Address bar

Published in: Mozilla Firefox, Windows 10, Windows 11

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. This works but one problem is that the notifications are only shown “live” and then disappears. Firefox notifications are still not saved in the Action center for later. Using FF 68

  2. Thank you !!! The Windows Native Notifications in Firefox is really s**k.
    I can’t link to Twitter directly by those Native Notifications.

  3. Hi team, In my case why Mozilla is not showing notifications. i did all ways what you mentioned above

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