Google Chrome is ditching that annoying bell icon no one uses

Google is doing away with the desktop notification center for Windows, Mac and Linux in the next version of Chrome, though it'll remain unchanged on Chrome OS.

The most basic reason for the change is that no one's really using it, according to Google software engineer Justin DeWitt, so it's an effort to streamline the desktop experience.

While Chrome apps and extensions have supported push notifications for several years now, it wasn't until 2013 that the notification center was launched. It combines rich notifications from web pages (images, formatted text and actions, such as the ability to respond to an email directly in the pop-up) and Google Now info — so Chrome users could catch up on notifications they missed while they were away from their desktop. The notification center can be found as a bell icon on the righthand side of your desktop's menu bar on Mac, and on the taskbar at the bottom the screen on Windows Read more...