Ever since Flock was founded, we have envisioned the role of the browser to be much greater than an application that simply lets you view your favorite websites. Throughout the many versions of Flock released to the public to date, we have focused on key innovations that help you stay connected with your favorite sites, people, media and content so that you can be a happier, more informed and plugged-in person.
OpenID is an open standard for shared authentication across many sites. Simply, it’s your free, single digital identity that you can use to sign up for and log into many sites without dealing with all the paperwork. This idea has been around for a while, but only until recently has there been a broad enough adoption of both OpenID providers as well as sites supporting OpenID.
Although there has been quiet momentum and support building across the web for OpenID for some time, it was the folks at Vidoop that identified the need for the browser to play a critical role as the common denominator to best serve as the broker between a user’s OpenIDs and the increasing number of sites that support this standard for authentication. Vidoop also founded the Identity In Browser open source project (IDIB) and championed the vision for a browser that could help users discover and manage OpenID’s easily from the comfort of their own browser view.
Flock was introduced to Vidoop by the good folks at MySpace, and without a moments delay a meeting between the three parties was put together at our offices in Victoria, B.C. Our engineers all agreed on the critical role that Flock could play in aiding the adoption and management of OpenID and the result of the brainstorm was an extension we’re calling “OpenID for Flock”. This extension is a reference design for better Discovery, and Management of Identity in the browser and is Flock’s flagship contribution to the IDIB project.
The OpenID for Flock extension is available on our own extension site, as well as on the IDIB group page. We encourage everyone to watch the video above, download Flock 2.0, and install the extension to experience how gratifying it is to traverse the web and log-in to sites seamlessly with the assistance of the OpenID standard.
We’ve enjoyed our collaboration with the MySpace and Vidoop team on this project, and look forward to hearing about your thoughts and interest in getting involved with this project.
Once you’ve had a chance to experience OpenID in Flock, we’d appreciate it if you would help spread the word about Flock and OpenID. The more sites that support the OpenID standard, the better the web becomes for all of us.
-Cheers
Dan Burkhart VP of Marketing at Flock
Get Flock and Meet Your New Favorite Browser
December 2, 2008 - 10:55am — angilinajetli (not verified)
Hello “Dan”,
Thank You for all this useful information. I actually am hearing about OpenID for the first time. This idea sounds very interesting.
I tried to get one OpenID but I found that I already have one. People who have a blog at blogger have their blog name as their OpenID.
I will now download the extension. Also, I have a forum and I will do some investigation to see if I can use OpenID in my forum or not.
I've been using OpenID for sometime, as well as Flock, and I'm really encouraged by this.
I'll try it out at home, but how will Flock handle sites, such as ma.gnolia, that I already use an OpenID with through Flock? Will I have to use the extension instead of the accounts & services within Flock?
December 2, 2008 - 12:13pm — Kaecy.us (not verified)
I... don't get how this is supposed to be useful. The whole point of openID is to get a single login to multiple sites, so why are you giving us the option to use multiple openIDs? It's counterproductive, surely.
I can appreciate how you're trying to publicise openID, and it's a great way to do it, but surely this is over complicating the process. Giving us a simple 'This site uses OpenID. Login with xxx as your OpenID?' would work much slicker, and would be useful to integrate into later versions of Flock, after Pownce is removed, thanks to 6A shutting it down.
@davidmead: We're not handling accounts&services any differently...regardless of *how* you log in, Flock should detect it and activate it within our features.
@Kaecy.us: I think I had the same confusion when I first saw this extension. However, the actual functionality of the extension is more like what you describe in your second paragraph. With this extension you set a specific OpenID as your default and Flock will automatically input it when you visit OpenID signup/signin forms.
The option to use multiple OpenIDs is just a nicety, and it's more about letting you choose *where* you want your original OpenID to come from.
If you haven't yet, give the extension a try and let me know if you feel that it accomplishes what you seek or not. We certainly intend to iterate and enhance this extension, and your feedback is key in making it useful for real people (not just for publicizing OpenID).
First, the extension doesn't work with MySpace in my experience. Is there a tutorial about it? I put my email (the one I sign in with), or the user number, but that makes no difference.
Second, why MySpace, since it imposes you to sign in with your email, like Yahoo or Google?
Third, why only Yahoo and not Gmail? I don't use Yahoo anymore.
Anyway, it seems to me this technology isn't mature enough.
@Salsa: MySpace is moving to support OpenID and OAuth but haven't finished this work yet. They will reach this integration however and are very much in support of this movement, hence their help with the project.
Gmail does not support OpenID, and thus the extension doesn't work with Gmail.
@Bob Chao: It's unlikely that we would spend our resources on this, but the extension is open-source and under GPL, so anyone can grab the code and work on porting it to Firefox!
I've been using OpenID for a while, even though I hesitate to put my ID with one of the big ad companies such as Yahoo!. I preferred to stay with a provider that comes from an identity management area, thus I chose to have an Verisign OpenID.
I like to have an OpenID add-on that eases my process of logging in with OpenID. So far, I used Verisign's Firefox add-on in Flock. I also checked the Flock extension, which I think integrates nicer in the UI, but lacks the feature to log me in to my OpenID provider. It sees that a website (e.g. Identi.ca) supports OpenID, but it doesn't see that I'm not logged in to my OpenID provider yet and it doesn't offer to log in there. That's something I like about the Verisign add-on.
Of course, Flock could go a much more comfortable route: Will you guys add an OpenID interface to the accounts feature? I.e. will I be able to automatically be logged on to my OpenID provider when I start Flock? Then I could really seamlessly log on to other sites using your add-on.
Thanks for all the good work you do and please, keep it up!
Evan,
Thanks for clarifying the MySpace problem. However, I would have preferred a warning that MySpace isn't working with this extension at the moment, or better, include MySpace only in another version of the extension when they are ready.
However, it seems to me that not all openid websites are compatible with others. So, it's not that open.
December 4, 2008 - 5:41am — Max Howell (not verified)
It's quite good, and quite usable. But the open id drop down is scary in complexity. Also disassociating the open id drop-down from the login form on the web page breaks the connection of the drop down and the form. It should be some kind of dialog that emerges from the form IMO.
December 13, 2008 - 7:06am — Srednarb (not verified)
Sorry to be off-topic, but just read matt cutts blog on this post, http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/browser-marketshare-stats/ , I wonder why flock is not included on the list, flock is a very good browser, and I like it.
@Srednarb: Those are just the stats of visitors on his blog (something that took me a minute to figure out as well). That said, Google Analytics does not currently call Flock out as a separate browser.
December 18, 2008 - 2:03am — Odzyskiwanie Danych (not verified)
@Evan: Does flock state it's a different browser?
I know you can set opera to tell websites it's other browser. I don't believe flock has less than 0,04% of market. Is that true?
January 7, 2009 - 6:21am — Padre Rico Padre Pobre (not verified)
There's a new OpenID extension for "social browser" Flock, and it was created with the help of password management service Vidoop and News Corp.-owned social network MySpace.
It's now available for download for all Flock users who have upgraded to Flock 2.0. For MySpace, which initially announced its support for OpenID back in July, this is also a push for Data Availability, a universal-login project that the social network announced in May but has since only rolled out with a few partners.
Yahoo, one of MySpace's launch partners for Data Availability, has also thrown its weight behind OpenID.
"As three companies dedicated to empowering users to easily share content and experiences, this was a very rewarding--and relatively fast--collaboration," Max Engel, MySpace's Data Availability product manager, said in a release. "Our goal was to eliminate some of the work involved in jumping between social experiences on the Web so that people can focus on their connections and the incredible content that's out there. This Flock extension will give millions of people an easier way to expand their experiences and expression without boundaries."
The OpenID Flock extension allows for easier credential management within the browser and makes it more apparent when a site will accept an OpenID login. A handful of OpenID extensions already exist for the open-source Flock, but this one's got the seal of approval from some big names.
There are deeper reasons for MySpace being so vocal about OpenID support, though. The standard has seen its toughest rival yet in the form of Facebook Connect, a data-portability project which enjoyed a high-profile New York Times writeup this week and will reportedly be ready for a full debut very soon. (It's already been implemented on a number of sites.)
Flock, unfortunately, isn't an enormous player in the browser space. It has tons of bells and whistles, but is still well behind the likes of Internet Explorer and Firefox in terms of downloads, and has newfound competition from Google's Chrome.
Regardless, MySpace has been paying a lot of lip service to open standards recently, and it's always good to see real developments.
January 9, 2009 - 8:20pm — BC Real Estate (not verified)
Open Id would be great, the only good alternative is saving passwords in through something like firefoxs master password tool but I still don't like the idea of saving passwords on my computer, So get cracking guys :P
No matter how much I tried to make Open ID work for me it only made things more difficult and took longer than simply entering my user name and password. Perhaps this extension is the answer. I just have to get up enough nerve to try it. Flock is great and a lot of my favorite Firefox extensions work perfectly on it however some more themes to choose from would be a nice addition, maybe assorted colors of the default theme which I like as well as the other two.
After filling in three IDs (Yahoo, Blogger, MySpace), which appear in "Your Open ID's", whenever I go to an Open ID-supported site, "Suggested OpenID's" says "Sorry, no OpenID's have been detected." every time.
February 1, 2009 - 11:26pm — Louise (not verified)
Flock sounds very interesting but I don't know if it is what I want. A couple of months ago I went to the Netscape site and they it told me Netscape was being discontinued. I much preferred Netscape to Internet explorer so have been trying to decide what browser to go to. The Netscape site at that time suggested Flock, and that I could transfer to Flock and they would remove netscape and replace it with Flock without any problem. Having looked over your site, I see so much extra stuff that is being pushed, I can't figure out if this is a genuine browser or not. I volunteer for two non-profit organizations and do their accounting as well. I have done banking, etc. on the computer for 20 years and need a secure brower to do it. I have never had a problem with Netscape, but worry about moving to Microsoft Internet Explorer. What can you tell me on this subject?
Thank you.
February 18, 2009 - 11:03pm — Coursework (not verified)
Flock is great and a lot of my favorite Firefox extensions work perfectly on it however some more themes to choose from would be a nice addition, maybe assorted colors of the default theme which I like as well as the other two.
February 22, 2009 - 5:52am — Dell Server Memory Upgrade (not verified)
Flock has its own Open ID?? That's really awesome. At least I know that from now on I will be using my flock open id. I was using the my blogger open id so far, but from now on Flock is the ID for me.
I dont like the idea of saving passwords on the computer via password tool of internet explorer. If oper ID solves my problem about passwords, I will be very happy.
Hello “Dan”,
Thank You for all this useful information. I actually am hearing about OpenID for the first time. This idea sounds very interesting.
I tried to get one OpenID but I found that I already have one. People who have a blog at blogger have their blog name as their OpenID.
I will now download the extension. Also, I have a forum and I will do some investigation to see if I can use OpenID in my forum or not.
Thank You
Regards
I've been using OpenID for sometime, as well as Flock, and I'm really encouraged by this.
I'll try it out at home, but how will Flock handle sites, such as ma.gnolia, that I already use an OpenID with through Flock? Will I have to use the extension instead of the accounts & services within Flock?
I... don't get how this is supposed to be useful. The whole point of openID is to get a single login to multiple sites, so why are you giving us the option to use multiple openIDs? It's counterproductive, surely.
I can appreciate how you're trying to publicise openID, and it's a great way to do it, but surely this is over complicating the process. Giving us a simple 'This site uses OpenID. Login with xxx as your OpenID?' would work much slicker, and would be useful to integrate into later versions of Flock, after Pownce is removed, thanks to 6A shutting it down.
@davidmead: We're not handling accounts&services any differently...regardless of *how* you log in, Flock should detect it and activate it within our features.
@Kaecy.us: I think I had the same confusion when I first saw this extension. However, the actual functionality of the extension is more like what you describe in your second paragraph. With this extension you set a specific OpenID as your default and Flock will automatically input it when you visit OpenID signup/signin forms.
The option to use multiple OpenIDs is just a nicety, and it's more about letting you choose *where* you want your original OpenID to come from.
If you haven't yet, give the extension a try and let me know if you feel that it accomplishes what you seek or not. We certainly intend to iterate and enhance this extension, and your feedback is key in making it useful for real people (not just for publicizing OpenID).
Thanks for the thoughts!
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
------------------------------
EvanHamilton.com
Community Management, SEO, & Marketing Blog
First, the extension doesn't work with MySpace in my experience. Is there a tutorial about it? I put my email (the one I sign in with), or the user number, but that makes no difference.
Second, why MySpace, since it imposes you to sign in with your email, like Yahoo or Google?
Third, why only Yahoo and not Gmail? I don't use Yahoo anymore.
Anyway, it seems to me this technology isn't mature enough.
Is that possible to port this extension back to Firefox 3? Okay, I think it's possible, but will you do this officially?
@Salsa: MySpace is moving to support OpenID and OAuth but haven't finished this work yet. They will reach this integration however and are very much in support of this movement, hence their help with the project.
Gmail does not support OpenID, and thus the extension doesn't work with Gmail.
@Bob Chao: It's unlikely that we would spend our resources on this, but the extension is open-source and under GPL, so anyone can grab the code and work on porting it to Firefox!
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
------------------------------
EvanHamilton.com
Community Management, SEO, & Marketing Blog
I've been using OpenID for a while, even though I hesitate to put my ID with one of the big ad companies such as Yahoo!. I preferred to stay with a provider that comes from an identity management area, thus I chose to have an Verisign OpenID.
I like to have an OpenID add-on that eases my process of logging in with OpenID. So far, I used Verisign's Firefox add-on in Flock. I also checked the Flock extension, which I think integrates nicer in the UI, but lacks the feature to log me in to my OpenID provider. It sees that a website (e.g. Identi.ca) supports OpenID, but it doesn't see that I'm not logged in to my OpenID provider yet and it doesn't offer to log in there. That's something I like about the Verisign add-on.
Of course, Flock could go a much more comfortable route: Will you guys add an OpenID interface to the accounts feature? I.e. will I be able to automatically be logged on to my OpenID provider when I start Flock? Then I could really seamlessly log on to other sites using your add-on.
Thanks for all the good work you do and please, keep it up!
Evan,
Thanks for clarifying the MySpace problem. However, I would have preferred a warning that MySpace isn't working with this extension at the moment, or better, include MySpace only in another version of the extension when they are ready.
However, it seems to me that not all openid websites are compatible with others. So, it's not that open.
It's quite good, and quite usable. But the open id drop down is scary in complexity. Also disassociating the open id drop-down from the login form on the web page breaks the connection of the drop down and the form. It should be some kind of dialog that emerges from the form IMO.
Please support Furl.net and Spurl.net.
Sorry to be off-topic, but just read matt cutts blog on this post, http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/browser-marketshare-stats/ , I wonder why flock is not included on the list, flock is a very good browser, and I like it.
@Srednarb: Those are just the stats of visitors on his blog (something that took me a minute to figure out as well). That said, Google Analytics does not currently call Flock out as a separate browser.
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
------------------------------
EvanHamilton.com
Community Management, SEO, & Marketing Blog
@Evan: Does flock state it's a different browser?
I know you can set opera to tell websites it's other browser. I don't believe flock has less than 0,04% of market. Is that true?
The Browser is very nice. I search a Germen version of Flock. Do you have one?
Greetz from Germany
Yeah, I'm using Firefox 3 and I'd like to know more about this extension.
Angela
I use flock with ubuntu and i love it :) . Thank you
I like the idea of this, but I can't bring myself to endorse it until they stop pluralising it as OpenID's.
I've been using flock for a long time and it just keeps getting better and better. Tools like this make it easy to get around the web.
great to know that Flock is within that range of web 2.0 companies.
@ musikfreund: here is the german version http://flock.com/de/
but in my country (germany) no one use flock. perhaps 2009 it get bigger and bigger ;-)
i love it!
There's a new OpenID extension for "social browser" Flock, and it was created with the help of password management service Vidoop and News Corp.-owned social network MySpace.
It's now available for download for all Flock users who have upgraded to Flock 2.0. For MySpace, which initially announced its support for OpenID back in July, this is also a push for Data Availability, a universal-login project that the social network announced in May but has since only rolled out with a few partners.
Yahoo, one of MySpace's launch partners for Data Availability, has also thrown its weight behind OpenID.
"As three companies dedicated to empowering users to easily share content and experiences, this was a very rewarding--and relatively fast--collaboration," Max Engel, MySpace's Data Availability product manager, said in a release. "Our goal was to eliminate some of the work involved in jumping between social experiences on the Web so that people can focus on their connections and the incredible content that's out there. This Flock extension will give millions of people an easier way to expand their experiences and expression without boundaries."
The OpenID Flock extension allows for easier credential management within the browser and makes it more apparent when a site will accept an OpenID login. A handful of OpenID extensions already exist for the open-source Flock, but this one's got the seal of approval from some big names.
There are deeper reasons for MySpace being so vocal about OpenID support, though. The standard has seen its toughest rival yet in the form of Facebook Connect, a data-portability project which enjoyed a high-profile New York Times writeup this week and will reportedly be ready for a full debut very soon. (It's already been implemented on a number of sites.)
Flock, unfortunately, isn't an enormous player in the browser space. It has tons of bells and whistles, but is still well behind the likes of Internet Explorer and Firefox in terms of downloads, and has newfound competition from Google's Chrome.
Regardless, MySpace has been paying a lot of lip service to open standards recently, and it's always good to see real developments.
I have just started using flock and i love it.
I can't wait to all site use open id I hate having all these logins.
Open Id would be great, the only good alternative is saving passwords in through something like firefoxs master password tool but I still don't like the idea of saving passwords on my computer, So get cracking guys :P
很不错哦
I have just started using flock and i love it.
No matter how much I tried to make Open ID work for me it only made things more difficult and took longer than simply entering my user name and password. Perhaps this extension is the answer. I just have to get up enough nerve to try it. Flock is great and a lot of my favorite Firefox extensions work perfectly on it however some more themes to choose from would be a nice addition, maybe assorted colors of the default theme which I like as well as the other two.
Hi,
When will there be other languages versions?
I'm french and i hope that it will arrives fast! :-)
Thanks for your wonderful work! Flock is a great browser. :)
@nonodoq: A French version of Flock 2.0.3 is on it's way soon!
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
------------------------------
EvanHamilton.com
Community Management, SEO, & Marketing Blog
thanks..
Hi, Thanks for your answer.
What do you mean by "soon" for the french version?
One week? One month? Three months?
Don't feel any pression. I just ask cause i'm very impatient to have it in French! :)
Thanks again and good luck!
After filling in three IDs (Yahoo, Blogger, MySpace), which appear in "Your Open ID's", whenever I go to an Open ID-supported site, "Suggested OpenID's" says "Sorry, no OpenID's have been detected." every time.
Want to make Flock themes but no info is available, any start point for me?
Flock sounds very interesting but I don't know if it is what I want. A couple of months ago I went to the Netscape site and they it told me Netscape was being discontinued. I much preferred Netscape to Internet explorer so have been trying to decide what browser to go to. The Netscape site at that time suggested Flock, and that I could transfer to Flock and they would remove netscape and replace it with Flock without any problem. Having looked over your site, I see so much extra stuff that is being pushed, I can't figure out if this is a genuine browser or not. I volunteer for two non-profit organizations and do their accounting as well. I have done banking, etc. on the computer for 20 years and need a secure brower to do it. I have never had a problem with Netscape, but worry about moving to Microsoft Internet Explorer. What can you tell me on this subject?
Thank you.
rss
rss
thankyoi
best of luck
Stunning post as usual.Keep up the sparkling work..!
Best online educational website for student they want to learn online course.
Flock is great and a lot of my favorite Firefox extensions work perfectly on it however some more themes to choose from would be a nice addition, maybe assorted colors of the default theme which I like as well as the other two.
Nice site could be very useful to the students.
nice social browser :)
Open ID for Flock is the best option for most the user. I think most of the blog should have Open ID extension available.
This brings me a lot, thank you
Flock has its own Open ID?? That's really awesome. At least I know that from now on I will be using my flock open id. I was using the my blogger open id so far, but from now on Flock is the ID for me.
I dont like the idea of saving passwords on the computer via password tool of internet explorer. If oper ID solves my problem about passwords, I will be very happy.
I have to say an amen to that! It's getting much much better...
I think the open ID is very cool!