wolfyrabbit's dashboard

OpenID doesn't have much of anything to do with bots or fetching email. It is a replacement technology for the login-password system. Instead of creating a login-password combination for ever website that you login into, you can use a your OpenID like a master account.

To understand, think about Google products. Right now you can login to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and all other google products using your google account information. OpenID works just like that, but for all your online accounts.

So you could use the same login at Yahoo, Google, my blog, GetSatisfaction, MySpace, Twitter, and any other website that supports OpenID.

Now you might say, why not just create a similar or the exact same login-pass combo at each site? The difference is that with OpenID, you can login once, at the beginning of your browser session, and every site you have an account with is logged in.

So you open your browser, surf to Yahoo Mail, are prompted for your OpenID login. Once logged in you check your mail then surf over to Flickr without having to login again. Then to Gmail without having to login again. Then to my blog where you leave a comment without having to login. You keep surfing around the web without that extra step of login at each site. And each site trust that you are who you say you are because of your OpenID. – Snowflake Seven, on October 06, 2008 05:16

Do you think OpenID would be better for fetching e-mails?

Well, certainly you can get your bot download e-mails for you, but google has its anti-bot mechanisms in place, will it serve the purpose?

Blogger is nice, but that happened months ago. – Snowflake Seven, on July 01, 2008 01:30

And when will Google web applications like Gmail start consuming OpenID?

Blogger users already have it, and there's an unofficial one on appspot. Might get canned due to the new fee system.