Skip to main content
FOSDEM PWA

UnifiedPush - Push notifications. Decentralized and Open Source

UB4.132 | Day 1 | 16:00 - 16:30 | Speakers: Daniel Gultsch, S1m

UnifiedPush - Push notifications. Decentralized and Open Source
A picture of a devroom at FOSDEM 2024
Open in browser

Notes

Abstract

To understand how we can replace Google push notifications (FCM) with something open source and decentralized, we need to understand how they work and why they are needed in the first place. This talk explains the mechanics of push notifications and why, despite their potentially bad reputation, they are a more elegant solution than having every app maintain its own persistent server connection.

While open-source tools like microG can remove proprietary Google software from your Android phone, the actual notifications are still sent via Google's servers (Firebase Cloud Messaging).

UnifiedPush is a framework that allows push notifications to be delivered in a decentralized manner or through self-hosted servers. Numerous open-source Android apps already support UnifiedPush, including Tusky, Ltt.rs, Fedilab, DAVx⁵, Fennec, Element, and many more.

The presentation ends with a short demo on how to use UnifiedPush on Android.

Attachments

Speakers

Daniel Gultsch

Hi, I’m Daniel 🤝

I’ve been a freelance software developer for 15+ years. My main interests are in open standards and communication protocols (Instant Messaging, E-mail, Fediverse). I’m the project lead on Conversations and Ltt.rs.

Most of my open source projects are hosted on Codeberg ⛰️.

I’m an active member of the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF), serving as the chair of the council and as a member of the editor team.

If you want to learn more about me checkout out my Mastodon 🦣 or my website 🌐.

S1m
Notice: The placeholder video image is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The original image can be found hereChanges made to the image are: Cropped the image to a new ratio, part of the image was cut off.