Update on OpenID

Well, I’ve had my OpenID for a while now – and frankly, I haven’t used it once since I signed up.

Oh don’t get me wrong – I am totally for the idea of a single, universal log on. But, in my opinion, the system isn’t quite “polished” enough.

Adding all my information into OpenID was easy enough, as was setting up the account. But whenever I try to sign into an OpenID-enabled site, I end up redirected back to my OpenID provider’s website to enter my password and “approve” the access. It’s a bit reminiscent of Vista’s User Account Control dialog that so many people complain about – except now it’s on the web.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I gave it a fair try – I even tried enabling OpenID on this blog – but in the end it was just too hard, too complicated, too much extra work for not enough gain, and in many ways it wasn’t backwards compatible. (I tried to enable OpenID login for comments AND leave the normal comment form for people who don’t have an OpenID, but wasn’t able to get it working.)

Perhaps I’ll give OpenID another try in a few months… we’ll see. But for now… it’s got a “thumbs down” from me.

Sorry, OpenID.