Imagine a world where you only had to remember one set of login details for any internet site you might want to visit. And imagine a world where you don’t have to go through a tedious signup process every time you want to use a new website. Sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? Welcome to the world of OpenID.
OpenID eliminates the need for multiple logins; no more juggling of different login details for every website you visit. Here’s how it works:
- You simply sign up to an OpenID provider who you trust, and in return they give you an OpenID URL. For instance, “http://yourname.myopenid.com”.
- Then, when you come across a website (let’s call it example.com) you want to sign up to, you just enter your OpenID address.
- Example.com then goes to your OpenID address, to check you are who you say you are (I’m leaving out some of the techy-behind-the-scenes stuff here).
- If you’re logged into your OpenID provider, you’ll be asked to confirm you want access to example.com, and if you’re not logged in, you’ll be prompted to do so and then asked to confirm.
- Control is passed back to example.com, who now know who you are. Optionally, you can get your OpenID provider to send profile data to example.com (your name, website, e-mail, etc) to save you having to enter them yourself.
- And you’re done! In future, if you want to visit example.com, you’ll be logged in automatically provided you’re logged into your OpenID provider.
OpenID is an open, free standard, which means it’s good for everyone: cheaper for businesses to implement (and less hassle managing passwords/accounts), and it means users get less frustrated and have less to remember. However, it’s still a work in progress, and still in the ‘adoption phase’ – but lots of big names are lending support, such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo!.
Whilst OpenID is a fantastic idea, and adoption is clearly on the rise, it’s still not quite as easy for users as it could be. Sites implement logins in different ways (sometimes the OpenID option on a login form is a somewhat hidden), and the whole process is a little bit more clunky than it could be. O’Reilly have a really interesting article on OpenID in the browser which discusses whether your browser could be the key to the whole process.
Imagine if your web browser really knew who you were on the web. Just as you login to your computer, what if when you fired up your browser, it said “Hello Dave” and asked you to “unlock it” as well … In doing so you become securely logged into your OpenID provider (or maybe more than one of them) and as you move around the web your browser takes care of automatically logging you into the sites that you want to be, asking you about others, and helping you register with new ones using your OpenID.
It’s a great idea, and I’m looking forward to seeing what develops in this area.
If you want to get your own OpenID, be sure to check out OpenID.net, who have an introduction to OpenID (the introduction to OpenID at myVidoop is good too), a guide to where to get an OpenID (including myOpenID.com and myVidoop) and a guide to the sites which currently accept OpenID.
Finally, this video from myVidoop explains OpenID in a really easy-to-understand way, and entertaining to boot – well worth viewing:
