Google has killed off Chrome's notification center for Windows, Mac and Linux because no one seems to use it.
In a blog post by Google, the company admits only a few Chrome users visit the notification center. As such, the feature will be removed in Chrome's next version in a bid to streamline the desktop experience.
"To keep Chrome simple, it will be removed from Windows, Mac and Linux in the upcoming release," reads Google's update. "The notification center on Chrome OS will remain unchanged."
Google incorporated a notification center for Windows, Mac and Linux in 2013, fusing rich notifications from web pages and Google Now and making them easily accessible via a shortcut on the OS X menu bar and Windows taskbar.
The company's reason for starting off the notification center back then, apart from providing support for Google Now for desktop, was to help users stay updated on the information that they may have missed while away from their computers.
Google, however, believes that by streamlining the desktop experience, Chrome can guarantee a smooth and uncomplicated notification experience on any platform.
A new notifications documentation, reflecting modifications that may affect Chrome applications and extensions, has also been made available. Google points out notifications sent only to the center will now lead to an error. It also says API events tied to the notification center will no longer work.
"All other notifications will continue to work without requiring any changes," says Google.
Last spring, Chrome began supporting a newly developed web standard for push notifications from web pages, suggesting Google has made changes to its approach to desktop as well as Chrome notifications.
Google rolled out Chrome 46, which comes with quite a few security fixes and new developer tools.
Chrome 46 has been deemed quite a major makeover, given the fact that Google incorporated more developer tools as well as 24 security fixes.
In the meantime, no user-facing functionalities have been integrated in the update.
"Developers can now animate any graphical object along an arbitrary path declaratively as a CSS property, allowing simpler code that doesn't block rendering or input," Google states.
