Mozilla's BrowserID offered as an alternative to OpenID

The classic way of logging into protected web sites usually starts with creating an account, picking a username, answering an email confirmation, doing password checks, often followed by a number of dialogs, and doing it for each and every site you want to log in to. The option of outsourcing logins and identity management is widespread – for instance, Yahoo, Facebook and Google use OpenID – but then there is the problem of vendor lock-in, data protection, and the complexity of implementation.

Now, Mozilla plans to considerably simplify the matter with its own standard. BrowserID is an open source project that is designed to work on all web sites – the Mozilla Foundation speaks of a "one-click experience" without additional verification; the only requirement is for users to have completed the email address confirmation process.