Firefox Account Manager To Simplify Web Logins
If you’re anything like the most of us, you usually follow up turning on your computer in the morning by launching your obligatory plethora of Web sites in numerous browser tabs. More often than not, based on current trends in Web activity, these would include your personal e-mail, Facebook, microblogging portals like Twitter and any other social networking site you patronize.
However, logging into each and every one of these sites could be a chore so Mozilla is cooking up a Firefox plugin called the Account Manager which simplifies the process. It allows you to manage your online site profiles, letting you sign in and log off Websites directly from the toolbar.
As of writing, the plugin is still a prototype with a handful of limitations though Mozilla has big plans for it. According to the post on the Mozilla Labs, Mozilla saw this as a solution for increasing the browser’s “understanding” of the user’s online identity and for “providing a platform for building new capabilities that securely take advantage of this rich, dynamic set of data that represents the digital ‘you.’”
To be able to accomplish this, Mozilla is also proposing a new protocol where Websites would be able to integrate with the browser to maximize this capability. For this, they have also put together a draft spec to define the protocol which they have made available on Google Docs for Web developers to take a crack at. And as an open source browser, third party developers and site administrators are encouraged to get involved by implementing the proposed protocol into their respective sites, or by hacking on the plugin by way of its source perhaps for further exploring its capabilities or by simply submitting feedbacks and taking part in discussions groups.
As it is merely in its early experimental stages, the Firefox Account Manager initially supports a fairly limited number of Websites including Google, Yahoo and Facebook as well three sites under the Mozilla umbrella: Mozilla Add Ons, Bugzilla and Get Personas. This plugin, once downloaded and installed, will appear in the form of a key icon lodged on the left side of the address bar.
We know how dynamic open source developers are, so aside from the discussions and activities within the next few weeks that explore online identity and the possible features of the Firefox Account Manager, we should also expect its further development. Perhaps a key feature or two would be added to it. Interesting additions would include integration with more Web sites, quick toolbar-based content sharing between social networks, an extra layer of security for protecting against identity theft online, and seamless switching between a number of accounts for PCs in public settings.
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RSpears @ March 19, 2010
