6 Reasons You Will Love OpenID

Here are six reasons OpenID is great that other sites haven’t seemingly mentioned:

1. Convenience
   
   Try out your OpenID on the new phpBB OpenID-enabled test forum. After a quick authentication with your OpenID provider, phpbb has created an account for you with all the details filled in.
   
   

   No email back-and-forth. You can post your comment to a new forum/blog that requires registration with hardly any delay.

   
   
2. Withhold your email address
   
   Email is generally not required for most OpenID-enabled sites currently. They no longer handle your password so the primary reason for requiring an email no longer exists.
   
   
3. Keep track of which sites have what information centrally
   
   OpenID providers like MyOpenID.com keep track of which sites you’ve authenticated with and what data you gave them.
   
   
4. Stop typing in all your personal info again and again
   
   Your OpenID provider will give the site you’re logging in to the data. Registration is practically instant. You decide what info is provided too. Don’t trust the site? Don’t provide them with your postcode or email address then.
   
   
5. Reputation
   
   Your OpenID can actually build up a reputation because it is linked to you. Nobody can masquerade as you unless they can guess your password. So you should make it a good one
   
   
6. Site-wide registration
   
   Another cool benefit of OpenID will be sites like archlinux.org, or kde.org which currently have 5 or 6 separate services that require separate registration and logon. With OpenID you can authorise the entire domain, then each service, provided it has OpenID support would automatically be authenticated.
   

People seem a little scared of OpenID, but I’ve been using it for a few months and I find it to be absolutely a step forward in how I use the Internet. I’m having more fun now with OpenID as I can sign up for fun little services with no qualms about registration or what data I’m handing over.

If you want a quick and easy OpenID, try FreeYourID.com, you get an ID of the form firstname.lastname.name, it’s free, no credit-card details are taken, and you can start using it straight away. I already registered http://max.howell.name, so bad luck if you wanted to annoy me

Fun OpenID-enabled sites to try:

http://jyte.com

http://stikis.com

http://imakemistakes.com

None of these sites require anything other than authentication, so they are fun and hassle free.