Mozilla Brings The Sign In Button To The Browser Level

If you’re on a website that uses
accounts , the sign in button can be
anywhere . Sure , there are some
common best practices , but I can
think of dozens of sites that put them
all over the place . Mozilla is looking to
fix that, by bringing the sign in to the
browser level .
A new experimental extension that
Mozilla has released for Firefox does
exactly this . When it ’s installed , you’ ll
see a new “ Sign In ” button just to the
left of the URL box. Clicking this , pops
open a window that prompts you for
a username and password for the site
you’ re on . It then shows you when
you’ re signed into a site , and gives you
one -click ability to sign out . Easy .
Simple . Nice.
Of course , the site you’re on has to
support this functionality . But Mozilla
has made it easy to do so, as they
outline in their post on the subject .
And the best part is that this can be
used with any type of log in — it can
be a broad one like OpenID , or
specific ones like a blog or even
Facebook , Twitter , etc — again , if
those sites were to implement
something like this .
One important note:
It ’s worth noting that this feature
doesn ’t communicate with any server-
side components , and doesn’t
capture, store or transfer any
personal information . The button is
semantically the same as clicking “ sign
in” on a page : it just tells the page you
want to sign in ( or sign out ) right now .
Essentially , Mozilla is just creating a
common place for the sign in button
to reside within the browser chrome
itself . Though they also note that it will
support cookies if the site turns that
functionality on as well.
While this is open for any site /service
to use , it is also an extension of
another Mozilla project : BrowserID. As
they announced here last month,
their idea for this new web
identification system is similar to
something like OpenID, which has
never quite caught on (Mozilla also
says it ’s more secure and seamless) .
Mozilla is trying to re -think
identification on the web from a high
level .
Beyond BrowserID (which is an open
technology anyway), Mozilla doesn’t
have any real skin in this game . But
some of their competitors could. For
example , Google is in the process of
implementing a signed in
experience for their Chrome
browser . This already works with
Sync , but Google is working on
profiles for Chrome as well. Being
signed in on the browser level also
allows you to be signed in to Google
sites , which is key for something like
Chrome OS .
Meanwhile , Facebook has been
working with RockMelt on a
Facebook signed- in experience for
that browser (which, coincidentally is
also based on Chromium ).
And on a broader level , both Google
and Facebook have been thinking
about this always -signed -in
experience quite a bit. This is
especially important in mobile, where
it can be more annoying to type in
usernames and passwords over and
over again . This, along with the focus
on being a central identity for the web
has led to projects like Facebook’s
Single Sign On .
So while Mozilla may have mostly
noble intentions here, I still suspect
we ’re going to see more along these
lines from their competitors that aren ’t
quite as noble. That’s not to say
they ’re meant to be evil , just done for
more selfish reasons . Google already
has their browser. I’d bet that
Facebook will have one sooner or
later . This could help Mozilla , as they
could end up as the truly open
alternative .