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New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

identity.mozilla.com

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Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#51
post #37

Here is my feedback. Perhaps the marketing of "persona" to consumers should take a backseat. When I signed in to http://123done.org/ the pop up* showing "sign in with persona" confused me for a moment. For a moment, I thought.. "but I do not have a persona account" If there is a way for users to just sign in with their email without telling them how it is done, I am sure there will be even less friction. Of course, t…

"sign in with persona" may be confusing now but "sign in with your e-mail" it's pretty clear https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/persona/branding

It's not clear at all. It's not clear to me and I've been a web developer for 15 years!

- I go to this site that I've never been to before

- It asks me to sign in with my email address, but I've never been to the site before so assume it doesn't "know" my email address

- I think look for a "Create Account" button to set up my account

- Now I'm confused as there is not a button anywhere

- I think "Well, I can't just type my email address in because that has never, ever worked on the web"

And so confusion reigns. Without some sort of iconography explaining what email addresses are accepted a la OAuth most users are going to be completely stumped.

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#52
post #45

I haven't been keeping up to date with Persona, but doesn't this open a window for email account breaching? I can picture some malicious websites mocking the "Sign in with persona" process and gaining the email AND associated password for that account without much trouble. Unless I've misunderstood Persona's point and the password is different from the user's email password.

Our team has thought a lot about this.

There are a bunch of angles to answer this from.

Short answer (assuming native browser, native webmail provider): The malicious website would have to fake browser chrome and fake the user's webmail login flow.

Long answers: Search through the mailing list and get involved! https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mozilla.d...

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#53
post #23

Before they push Persona more, can someone walk over to the team that's running http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/ and either disconnect their servers or lock them to their chairs until they finish the migration? I understand the pain of rebranding assets, I do. But if you're going to rebrand to a product your company is already using, it has to be fast. And Mozilla, the 2 year anniversary is in July...

Completely agree. When I first starting hearing about it, this is what popped into my head. For the longest time, I couldn't separate the two.

At the very least, they should have chosen a different name.

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not, actually. A reasonable guess for "Sign in with your email" prompt is that you'd need to go through a typical account creation process using your email as a primary ID. In other words, the message looks like a synonym of "Create an account". There gotta be more thought put into how to make people aware of Persona mechanism, because it is quite different from all existing sign-in options and it needs to be l…

But Persona is all about using your email as your primary ID. Otherwise they'd just let you use keypair directly, without a hassle of having third parties (email providers) leasing you an identity.

Believe me, _I_ know that. The question is how to word the Persona sign-in prompt so not to confuse an Average Joe.

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#55
post #39

I tried to log in to this site https://current.trovebox.com/ which was linked on the Persona home page: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/ I tried to use my gmail address and it gave me this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13941904/persona.png Am I just making up a password for a Persona account and it's using my email address as the user id? I can see how some people would type in their gmail password in by mistake.

> Am I just making up a password for a Persona account and it's using my email address as the user id?

Yes, gmail isn't a Persona identity provider, so we have to create an account for you.

Try logging in with a yahoo email account. You will not have to create a "Persona account" password.

The moment Google implements Persona support, we'll stop asking you for this password and delegate to Google's web log in flow.

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#56
post #52
post #45

I haven't been keeping up to date with Persona, but doesn't this open a window for email account breaching? I can picture some malicious websites mocking the "Sign in with persona" process and gaining the email AND associated password for that account without much trouble. Unless I've misunderstood Persona's point and the password is different from the user's email password.

Our team has thought a lot about this. There are a bunch of angles to answer this from. Short answer (assuming native browser, native webmail provider): The malicious website would have to fake browser chrome and fake the user's webmail login flow. Long answers: Search through the mailing list and get involved! https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/mozilla.d...

Thanks for the link ozten, I'll definitely follow the mailing list. Cheers on the good work -- I'm sick of entering passwords.

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#57
For this to be adopted, you need to have at least one major email provider implementing it, at least one major browser, and at least one major website. If you don't have the three corners of the triangle, people will inevitably judge Persona by its fallback implementation and will fail to understand the advantages Persona offers.

The good news is Mozilla have managed to implement a bridge that makes it look like one major email provider, Yahoo!, implements it.

Now you need the other two corners. Firefox OS is not mainstream enough, why doesn't Firefox for the desktop implement this natively yet? Isn't the whole of Mozilla behind this initiative? (Also, why haven't they fully retired the old usage of the brand Mozilla Persona yet?)

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#59

Here is my feedback. Perhaps the marketing of "persona" to consumers should take a backseat. When I signed in to http://123done.org/ the pop up* showing "sign in with persona" confused me for a moment. For a moment, I thought.. "but I do not have a persona account" If there is a way for users to just sign in with their email without telling them how it is done, I am sure there will be even less friction. Of course, t…

Regarding Firebase, they said that they "added support for Persona as one of the authentication mechanisms for their Simple Login service". Their main website must not be using this service or not enabled the particular authentication component?

Re: New Persona Beta: Millions of Users Ready to Log In using Any Browser

#60
post #57

For this to be adopted, you need to have at least one major email provider implementing it, at least one major browser, and at least one major website. If you don't have the three corners of the triangle, people will inevitably judge Persona by its fallback implementation and will fail to understand the advantages Persona offers. The good news is Mozilla have managed to implement a bridge that makes it look like one…

There's no reason for it to be integrated in the browser?
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