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Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#21

Post by jomohke »

wvenable wrote: post #19
zepolen wrote: post #14

I didn't think much of it, but after using it for a week, I wish it was used everywhere. To those of you who haven't used it, try it out before condemning it. It's really nice to login with the click of a button (no typing usernames and passwords) and signing up is usually a one click action as well.

What's the best way to start for someone who doesn't want their entire internet identity tied with up Yahoo, Google, or Facebook?

Use another OpenID provider, such as https://www.myopenid.com/

Or you can host your own.

See here for a good list: http://openid.net/get-an-openid/

I initially wasn't too impressed by OpenID, but I was sold by the third site I got to use my login. It's value is really tied to the adoption by sites.

It's especially nice on small blogs: you don't have post anonymously if you are averse to signups.

Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#23

Post by bensummers »

wvenable wrote: post #19
zepolen wrote: post #14

I didn't think much of it, but after using it for a week, I wish it was used everywhere. To those of you who haven't used it, try it out before condemning it. It's really nice to login with the click of a button (no typing usernames and passwords) and signing up is usually a one click action as well.

What's the best way to start for someone who doesn't want their entire internet identity tied with up Yahoo, Google, or Facebook?

Use delegation (indirection) to use one of those providers, but with your own URL.

http://intertwingly.net/blog/2007/01/03/OpenID-for-non-Super...

This allows you to change the underlying implementation at any time.

Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#24

Post by timdorr »

rykov wrote: post #13

A better question would be, for those of you who implement OpenID, Facebook Connect, etc. What's the customer percent breakdown against doing it the old fashioned (email & password) way?

Well, there should be a breakdown between FB Connect and OpenID. The login flow between those two implementations is drastically different.

Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#25

Post by aklemm »

Having a single URL that I can rely on for all my stuff on the web is going to be amazing...when it finally happens. OpenID provides the authentication component in that dream, which is key, but there is much more potential in URL-based services beyond SSO and solving 'the password problem'.

Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#26

Post by bombs »

I like to keep a list of my accounts on the web and OpenID would automate this task for me, if it weren't for the fact that most websites where I maintain an account do not support OpenID or do not make full use of OpenD (i.e. they link an OpenID URL to a traditional email/username and password based account account).

As most websites that do support it — that I use — require a traditional email/username and password based account and I've yet to encounter a website that required me to have OpenID to make full use of functionality, to me, an OpenID account is the extra account I have to keep track of.

Interestingly, Wildbit removed support for OpenID in Beanstalk earlier this year. (http://wildbit.com/blog/2009/05/26/what-happened-to-openid-s...)

Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#28

Post by cschwarm »

I just started using it yesterday, but I'm not quite happy. My reservation is not due to technological reasons, but to bad business models or lack of features.

Gravatar support is, for example, a feature I'd like to get from my OpenID provider. After all, my image belongs to my identity.

Next, with a single identity comes also privacy concerns. Automatically generated disposable E-Mail addresses for each new sign-up would be nice to have, in my opinion.

Privacy concerns, however, are also related to the most common business models of these providers: It seems, nearly all of them want to display or sent me advertising. Or they want to be able to improve their advertising displays.

Can't they just ask for, say, US$29 or US$39 a year?

Then, I'd also need some sort of easy Identity transfer. If I switch providers, for example, the new one should be able to ask the old one for all the data and notify the consumers about the switch. Otherwise, the transaction costs of a switch would be rather high, exposing me to monopoly problems.

Browser support would also be nice to have, so there's a check that I'm being redirected to my true ID provider, not just something that looks like it.

Maybe, this stuff is too sophisticated for a sufficiently large number of people. But maybe, it works with the right sales pitch.

Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#29

Post by kogir »

whopa wrote: post #18
warp wrote: post #12

The benefit for me is that you get to choose who stores your password. A random website may store my password plaintext, I have no way of knowing -- so I am forced to use different passwords for each site, and manage them some way. Ofcourse, I _know_ this, but in general, users don't know and don't care. So, OpenID actually makes the web a safer place for inexperienced users, which is I think is rather important.

Except the phishing aspects make it worse for inexperienced users, since an arbitrary website can redirect to a page that asks for a potentially more sensitive username/password, and that's actually considered normal flow. I don't understand how anyone can promote OpenID in good conscience with this glaring hole in the design. You simply can't rely on user education.

I've been saying this the whole time and nobody seems to view it as a serious problem. Sure, there are users who will use the same username and password on every site, and there's no hope for them. However, there is a class of users who might think with openid they can use the same credentials for their bank as they do for facebook, but not know to check for valid ssl certificates and nefarious proxying.

Can someone who doesn't believe the phishing potential is real please tell me why? What am I missing?

Re: Poll: What do you think of OpenID?

#30

Post by ideamonk »

The only thing that makes me use open ID is the fact that I used myopenid to create my account on stackoverflow :/ Now I want and account transfer feature on stackoverflow so that I can attach/shift from myopenid to plain simple gmail id.
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