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Comment by radarsat1 | Hacker News Reader

So, I understand that Facebook et al are more popular options, but I am noticing that OpenID in particular is really losing momentum. Personally I really liked the idea of OpenID, so I'm just wondering, from the point of view of web developers, what is it about OpenID that makes you not want to use it? Or is it just that Facebook is overwhelmingly more popular as a login method so it's not worth it?

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I think OpenID is simply not understood by enough people.

I agree. I spent a lot of time simplifying my OpenId setup so that all I had to do was type in my first name on a website and would be authenticated. I think online identity is still ripe for disruption and improvement.

...and sadly BrowserID never took off.

Huh? Our first beta release is scheduled for ~2 weeks from now, and the entire idea is barely a year old. We're still quite alive and well -- come join us on GitHub (mozilla/browserid) or IRC (irc.mozilla.org/identity)! :)

Plus, Mozilla is dog-fooding Persona all over the place[1], so we're personally invested in getting this thing right and keeping it working.

[1]: Bugzilla, MDN, Etherpad, Mozillians, Metrics, Popcorn, OpenBadges, Marketplace, Add-on Builder, Flicks, and Affiliates all use Persona, with more to come.

I think you meant OpenID.

BrowserID is new, and awesome. My fear is that a good universal login needs to support both Mobile Safari and Google Chrome on Android, and due to their childish fighting, it's unlikely anything client side can work on both, to the detriment of users and Internet security as a whole.

Desktop browsers are a lot easier (extensions, and browser choice), but mobile/tablets makes this all a lot harder than it was a few years ago. :(

Logging in with a URL. That does not make sense.

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