New system announced on Thursday
On Thursday, Mozilla announced BrowserID, which is a new system to sign in to any web site with the same email id as a common identity. The BrowserID potentially plans to address the issues seen due to passwords even when the OpenID is already activated. The primary aim of the new system is to eliminate the users from the encumbrance of retaining several user IDs and password for the various sites.
Improved user experience
However, not all users undertake the trouble of maintaining different IDs and passwords for different sites. Irrespective of the security warnings, several users retain the same IDs and passwords for different websites. The new system, BrowserID, aims to assist users by overcoming the necessity of using email verification. The system will allow developers’ sites to offer an improved experience to its users.
Simple working system
The new system introduced by Mozilla is planned to be simple for the users to adopt. Users will have to click on the sign in button that is found on a BrowserID compliant site. The users will then be redirected to the BrowserID site where the users will input their email address and a new master password. The users will then receive a verification email, which provides a verification link that has to be clicked by the users. Once the verification is completed, the users can use the user name and password at any BrowserID compliant site. Technically, the new system is a cryptographic scheme that proves the ownership of an email address to a specific site.
New system better for users
Although, most of the web companies would prefer that users utilize their specifications on login names and passwords, the new system is aimed to make the process simpler for users. According to Dan Mills, users prefer trusting an open-source and community-focused system. One of the available options is the outsourcing of login and identity management to bigger providers, which include Facebook, Twitter, or Google. However, these systems also face the problem of lock-in, reliability, and data privacy. One such system is OpenID, which is a decentralized system that is accepted by AOL, Google, Paypal, Yahoo, and IBM. The system aimed to provide non-proprietary alternative to sites.
BrowserID to eliminate issues
Mozilla agrees that its new system requires more work before it can be flawless and more acceptable. However, the ease and simplicity of its deployment is a huge advantage of this system. Moreover, the system uses HTML and JavaScript and does not leak any data about the users to any servers or sites.