OpenID Fan Club Is Shrinking

A.B. VerHausen writes "Even though there's a whole new Web site devoted to understanding and using OpenID, some companies are dropping the login method altogether. OStatic is reporting that the 'free Web site network Wetpaint announced recently that it will no longer support OpenID as a login option for its wiki, citing low usage and high support costs as reasons.' Apparently, fewer than 200 registered users bothered with OpenID, and the extra QA and development time doesn't make it worthwhile to support. This can't come as welcome news on top of the internal issues the article mentions the OpenID Foundation is having now, too." I've actually been quite happy with OpenID, since I have spawned far too many username/password pairs over the last 20-plus years, but it's a major chicken-and-egg problem. Hopefully someone out there will build a better mousetrap ...

Comments

OpenID still exists?

[jandrese]

I remember when this came out. I thought to myself "I'll sign up when I run into a website that needs it." Except for this article, that was the last I'd ever heard of it. I'm amazed it is still around.

Re:What bothers me about OpenID.

[Aladrin]

The idea behind OpenID is that the forum never has your login credentials, they just have the promise of some OpenID server that you are really you. They can never use the information they obtain to log into any other service you use with that login.

You still have to trust that OpenID server with all of your logins, but it's not like you trust every tiny site with them.

Having said that, very few sites I use will take OpenID, and some are providers only... Which is absolutely worthless. I'm waiting for something worthwhile to happen before I jump in, and I bet a lot of other people are, too.

Re:Local software solution instead

[DMUTPeregrine]

KeePass Password Safe is open source, and quite portable. I keep my database on a USB key, which is on my keychain. Anywhere I go I have my passwords AND the executables.