Avoid multiple login names with OpenID

I really like the idea of an open and decentralized standard which allows you to sign in to multiple websites without entering your username and password over and over again on every site that requires you to login to vote (digg.com), comment, or participate in other means. There are so many sites where you have to login to use basically the same features that you used on another site just before you visited the new one.

Moreover, if you don’t use a very unique username, most likely you’ll sooner or later find out that your username has already been taken by someone else on a particular website. That forces you to choose another one and remember it or write it down. A good solution for storing such username password combinations for various services is KeePass but it doesn’t resolve the problem of multiple logins. The solution to this might be OpenID.

You simply create your openID account at one of openID providers (e.g. myOpenID ) and after that you can sign in to all OpenID enabled sites without having to re-enter login details on all of them.

You just provide your unique ID (username.openidprovider.tld) and that’s it. It could be especially useful if you don’t have the possibility to use features such as Opera’s Wand. One disadvantage is that the website must support it. However, the number of OpenID enabled sites is growing quite fast. Some of them are:

• ImageShack
• Technorati
• Ma.gnolia
• Crunchy
• Rootly

Another disadvantage is that if someone steals your identity, he could gain access to all of your accounts on these websites. Does not make a difference for users who do use the same username and password on all sites though.