All notifications come through google centralized servers if developer uses it . does this mean google can spy on protonmail notifications.
As far as I know and understand, even the notifications are E2EE. There is no need to worry here.
But perhaps someone more knowledgeable can answer and explain more/better. The short answer is no.
My understanding is that services like Proton and Signal don’t actually send the notification through Google. What they instead send is a wakeup ping through the service to the app so that it then loads the notification locally.
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Yeah, that could be the case too. I only have limited knowledge about this as I am not an Android user nor have ever used it - albeit I hope to change that later this year and finally get Graphene.
That is definitely what Signal does. Or at least what they said they do in a blog post from some years back. It would surprise me if Proton didn’t do the same thing.
So Google can see that Signal or Proton notified the device that there was something it should contact their server(s) for but not why. On the other hand the most likely thing would be that you received a message (Signal) or an email (Proton).
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Is there any blog or article that elaborates its full process and functionality . I would like to read more about it .
Threema has some information about this on their website. They do not use Google notifications.
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It’s good to note that any app that has notification access, can read the notifications that are displayed on the phone. As long as the phone shows the content, and an app that is installed has that access, it can see, log, and send that content elsewhere assuming it has internet access.
There a lot of really cheap phones in my country that have decent hardware and cost $80. When I had one, I found that the default launcher had notification access and that although access could be turned off, it would turn itself back on before long. Installing a different launcher and disabling the default system launcher resulted in push notifications not working at all. It was really frustrating and although I watched traffic with a local VPN and blocked a lot at the DNS level, I never really felt good about that phone and ended up saving enough money to buy one that runs CalyxOS. If you want to have notification previews, then the risk of something stealing the messages always exists.
It is something to additionally look out for.
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Thnx , no app has access to notifications on my phone I am worried about the google notification server thing , I would check threema website. I checked encrypted notification are great that works by displaying a local app notification.What kind of data is transmitted via push notification services? – Threema. More info -Google Push alternatives: Best open source apps for your Android. | Tuta
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