Unit Structures: OpenID Enable Firefox

OpenID Enable Firefox
Posted 8/14/2006 12:47:00 PM |

I don't exactly remember who came up with the idea, but in conversations with Chris Messina, Josh Peek and Brian Ellin, we stumbled across the idea of OpenID-enabling Firefox. I see a couple places where Firefox could implement OpenID.

Password management can be done via OpenID. Currently, Firefox stores its master password on your system. It makes a lot of sense to allow this master password to be an OpenID. As it stands, your browser owns your identity - it makes a lot of sense to then tie your browser to your OpenID. What's more, as the password is not stored locally, it is inherently more secure.
Firefox could implement an OpenID-management. For example, if you verify your OpenID's to Firefox, it would be able to let you select the identity credentials you want to present to a website. Whats more, Firefox could leverage this knowledge to let you create user-centric identity profiles that you control (as everything is tied back to your openid).

In thinking about how to drive OpenID adoption, it really make sense to go after the browser. We must think of our browser as we think of anything else on the net - your browser is a living record of your identity, and that information is extremely valuable.

As the OpenID community is offering 5,000 dollars to projects that implement OpenID, I'd really love to see Firefox take the initiative.

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5 Comments: (Post a Comment)

At August 14, 2006 5:09 PM, miketrevis said...: Miketrevis Trackback: http://fusebox.altervista.org/wordpress/2006/08/openid-in-firefox

I hope that a day this could be possible.
At August 15, 2006 2:12 PM, Fred Stutzman said...: Awesome - me too Mike.
At January 04, 2007 7:06 PM, paolo said...: I think this one is relevant for you, and it supports OpenId (... it's a pity that here for commenting I cannot use OpenId ;-)

http://www.sxipper.com/

We're Hiring!
Sxipper is a free plug-in for Firefox that lets you log into any website with a single click. Sxipper saves you time by keeping track of all of your user IDs, passwords, and the personal data you share every day over the web. Sxipper logs you in securely and helps to prevent you from being victimized by phishing sites and phony logins.
At February 01, 2007 12:09 PM, Premasagar said...: I agree - it'd be great to have OpenID management from within Firefox.

As another step, I can imagine a day when I have a little USB dongle that I plug into the computer I'm working on. The dongle speaks to my OpenId server and, along with my typed password, it logs my identity in to every application on the computer - including any site I visit through the browser....
At April 01, 2007 9:12 PM, bard said...: An extension to use OpenID in Firefox is here.