Alarm bells are currently pealing with regard to ‘notificationitis’, an addiction that affects smartphone users and consists of a feeling of irrepressible need to check their phones every time it emits any sort of ding. Luckily if you’re working in front of your computer it’s possible to receive phone notifications on your desktop browser and thus avoid the need to have your device attached to the end of your arm. Here are some of the most practical apps for that purpose.
Pushbullet
We’ve already talked here before about PushBullet, a tandem mobile app/browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that lets you send all sorts of documents and reminders between your phone and desktop computer, although another of its features is precisely the one we’ve been talking about: it lets you view any message from the notifications bar in a small pop-up browser tab, which makes this tool a powerful support for those who need to be constantly interacting with their smartphone and the rest of their machines.
Desktop Notifications
On the other hand, Desktop Notifications offers a service specifically to receive notifications on your browser, and can independently select which applications you want to show notifications for, and can also enable a private mode where, for example, if you receive a text notification for an email, you’ll just be notified that you have new mail, with the sender and the content kept private. With regard to how it works, it requires you to install both the app on your device and the extension on Chrome.
AirDroid
If we’re talking about apps that integrate operations between your PC and smartphone, it’s obligatory to mention AirDroid. Some of the many things you can do from your PC include organizing, installing and backing up your installed apps, viewing photos, organizing your contacts book and changing the ringtone.
Among its extra features you’ll find the option to receive notifications that arrive to your phone, which is the same function carried out by the two aforementioned services. And like the others, it makes use of a browser extension, meaning it works on any computer regardless of whether it uses Windows, Mac or Linux.
