Openid And what it can do for you

[q9c9p 0]

Hello to all the people in the forum,

aren't you annoyed by filling in registration forms every time a you find a nice web service you want to be part of? Wouldn't you like to have to use the same account you always had without filling gazillion forms?

People who have facebook are used to this by using their facebook credential to log around websites, but for those who don't have a facebook?

And here it comes: OpenID

From their website ( hope is ok to quote a line from their website, I apologize in case I'm doing wrong ):

Accelerate Sign Up Process at Your Favorite Websites
Most websites ask for an extended, repetitive amount of information in order to use their application. OpenID accelerates that process by allowing you to sign in to websites with a single click. Basic profile information (such as your name, birth date and location) can be stored through your OpenID and used to pre-populate registration forms, so you spend more time engaging with a website and less time filling out registration pages.
Reduce Frustration Associated with Maintaining Multiple Usernames and Passwords

Most web users struggle to remember the multiple username and password combinations required to sign in to each of their favorite websites, and the password recovery process can be tedious. But using the same password at each of your favorite websites poses a security risk. With OpenID, you can use a single, existing account (from providers like Google, Yahoo, AOL or your own blog) to sign in to thousands of websites without ever needing to create another username and password. OpenID is the safer and easier method to joining new sites.
Gain Greater Control Over Your Online Identity

OpenID is a decentralized standard, meaning it is not controlled by any one website or service provider. You control how much personal information you choose to share with websites that accept OpenIDs, and multiple OpenIDs can be used for different websites or purposes. If your email (Google, Yahoo, AOL), photo stream (Flickr) or blog (Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal) serves as your primary online presence, OpenID allows you to use that portable identity across the web.
Minimize Password Security Risks

Many web users deploy the same password across multiple websites. And since traditional passwords are not centrally administered, if a security compromise occurs at any website you use, a hacker could gain access to your password across multiple sites. With OpenID, passwords are never shared with any websites, and if a compromise does occur, you can simply change the password for your OpenID, thus immediately preventing a hacker from gaining access to your accounts at any websites you visit.

Because the focus of most OpenID providers (such as Google, Yahoo and AOL) is in identity management, they can be more thorough about protecting your online identity. Most website operators are less likely to be as dedicated to protecting your identity as the OpenID providers, whose focus is on securely hosting user identities.

Reference: http://openid.net/get-an-openid/individuals/

So...how to get started?!

First visit this link to see if you already use any of this services:

http://openid.net/get-an-openid/

and if you do then look into your account ( of those services ) to get your OpenID credential, otherwise if you want to roll a fresh new OpenID credential go to http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and follow the instructions to apply for a new OpenID, hopefully this will save you lots of time from now on for login into different services.

Oh, but...my favorite new web service site does not implement OpenID, what should I do?!?

Well just ask the owners or the technicians to add it as a feature, a lot of people will be happy to see it, and I suppose also denotes technological awareness for who is doing the service/site.

http://openid.net/add-openid/ Add OpenID to your website.

Hoping you all enjoyed this brief presentation of OpenID, and hoping it might be helpful to someone, I salute you.

Ciao

q9c9p