Introducing BrowserID

BrowserID is a new experimental way of signing into websites brought to you by Mozilla Labs. Let us know what you think! Leave us a comment or send a tweet and include the #browserid tag.

Learn more about BrowserID at https://browserid.org/
Follow the Mozilla Identity team blog at http://identity.mozilla.com/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• mozilla
• identity
• browserid
• signin
• login
• computers
• software
• technology
• web
• websites

[Liam0441]

Do developers get the user's email address? So they can email them with newsletters or whatever

[vthunder0]

@Liam0441 Yes they do!

[vthunder0]

Thanks for the comments! a few points:

Check out the hacker news thread for a lot of good discussion btw. a few points:

- you can ask "which email do you want to use to sign into this site?" and non-technical people understand what you mean

- VEP (the underlying protocol) does not leak info about where you are signing into back to the identity provider

- it's really easy for sites to implement, see the browserid site for a quick tutorial

- it's also easily implemented natively in the browser

[johnoandsarah9000]

Great Demo - but you spelt Guinness incorrectly. :-)

[vthunder0]

@johnoandsarah9000 oops :-P

[BuzzedWord]

How is this different from OpenID?

[Sushubh]

@BuzzedWord came here to ask the same question. google/twitter/facebook provides similar functionality as well. OAuth? 

[simonw1485]

@Liam0441

You give them your email address anyway when signing up to a site.

[Dayantos]

I don't see how this solves having to make up new passwords. If I understand correctly, it makes everything use the same password, so why not do that in the first place if you don't care about security?

[NathanBLawrence]

@BuzzedWord Instead of using a server to verify your identity, BrowserID uses a unique identifier attached to your web browser.

[Adolphsson]

Interesting approach, but why would you like to tie your ID to your e-mail? I like to have a unique e-mail alias on every service I use. That way I can just remove the alias if the service gets hacked or starts to misbehave. I still encourage people to use OpenID.

[groMMit1981]

Sweet! I do so hope M$, Google and Facebook, obviously not Apple, support this and work with you guys.

Be nice to have a history page on the backend so can check what email is authorized with what site, logon times, etc.

[Liam0441]

@vthunder0 Great! This looks so simple!

[ilikewebm]

cool! it works, i post a ajax post over with jquery and then i verifyed :P

[meetarnav]

are you also interested in photography...? You talk like Gordon Laing !! :P

[ssokolow]

I don't really see the point to this, except as a few more clicks to punish me every time I give a new unique e-mail alias to a site I'm registering on.

Can BrowserID be delegated like OpenID?

How do sites know they can trust me if I'm acting as my own Identity Provider?

Is there a worthwhile means of feedback that doesn't require me to clutter up my inbox with a mailing list subscription? (I've already checked and dev-identity isn't NNTP-accessible via GMane)

[kaisellgren666]

@Jaimemiguel07 if you don't get it, stfu.

[DMizuho]

Great... another company that will have sell-able info about you. I prefer different passwords, and different IDs. If one gets hacked, then I'll still have the others. The idea is nice, but it's for lazy people who most likely have "qwerty" passwords. This is a huge security issue to me.

[vi00097]

Looks interesting! XD

[DJImpulser]

So if someone hacks your email, you're completely fucked with every other website?

[Jaimemiguel07]

What the hell is this? What do we have lastpass for? Stop copying ideas and improve your browser Mozilla !!! >:(

[havenbastion]

@vthunder0 i have literally hundreds of accounts spread across the web and am most often stopped cold having to reset my password because of arcane requirements for my password or a site that works in conjunction with other sites which wrecks my ultra-secure formula for creating new passwords. but what i found most interesting is that you can use multiple email addresses, which means that i can use one for this type of business, one for that, one for personal, etc. and that's great!

[TheAslanDA]

This is exactly like LastPass addon which is damn awesome! Especially because there's autologin feature too, i prefer LastPass.

[kshep92]

About time!

[frvfilms]

i was thinking retina eye scans /finger print pictures in every website loging would be better

[conspiritor2]

I don't drink beer.

[cgpilk]

@b0h3ma But OpenID hasn't taken off (Because it is too complicated for normal users?).

[cgpilk]

What happens if you don't have a favourite beer?

[lowtone10]

@BuzzedWord more secure technology behind it i think (public key authentication)

[Techdude300]

For those of you asking how it's different from OpenID, The H did an article that goes in depth about the inner workings.