I try to keep this blog positive but need to vent a bit today about logins.
In the good old days you’d use a username and password to log into a website. We’ve all been educated now to use good passwords too and some of us use a password manager, like 1Password, for extra security and convenience.
These days we have foolishness like sites that make you enter a username on one page and then a password on the next. Annoying!
My current gripe is the ones that make you verify yourself via an email, even after providing a username and password.
I’ve given you my username and my password and sometimes even told you how many traffic lights are in a stupid picture: take me to the good stuff now!
I’m really getting pretty fed up with it. On trying to view a video from a creator I support on Patreon, I even considered getting out of Patreon thanks to this ridiculous roadblock. Why should I verify just to watch a video. But getting out would hurt the creator.
And while I’m ranting: I love Micro.Blog but it doesn’t even let me use a password. If I need to log in again on the web I have to wait for an email with a special link that I can’t then use next time, weeks or months later! It’s ridiculous and very annoying.
I suppose all this stuff is to deal with bots or something, but heck! even my bank just needs a username and password. I can’t believe I have to jump through hoops to watch a video on Patreon.
Rare rant over.
Miraz Jordan @gpittman Thanks for the explanatory feedback. I checked my Amazon account and found a two-factor authentication section where I hoped to be able to turn off the annoying behaviour, but No! I could have turned on even more roadblocks!
Miraz Jordan @pimoore I love that my iPhone and iPad recognise my face for some things, eg banking login.
Miraz Jordan @pimoore Oh, thanks. Pretty sure I customised the mentions. I'll rummage around a bit…
Miraz Jordan @pimoore This CSS might or might not work, but may give ideas:
/* webmentions */
.comment-avatar.u-photo.js-avatar, img.u-photo.js-avatar { width: 75px; height:auto; float:left; margin-top:0; margin-right:1rem;}
replies li , #shares li , #likes li {list-style: none; clear:both; padding-top:1rem;}
.p-author { font-style:italic; font-family:serif; color:gray;}
like-count, {display:none;}
Miraz Jordan URK! Don't know what happened to make the text in that reply look so utterly bizarre!
Miraz Jordan @pimoore Ah, something about having a hash messed up the look of the reply and omitted the hash itself. There should be one before ‘replies li' and before ‘like-count’.
Odd-Egil “Oddzthrash” Auran You can use three backticks (```) before and after a code block to prevent this. (I think).
Odd-Egil “Oddzthrash” Auran True! 😅The backticks aren’t obvious on the iPhone keyboard either…
Manton Reece I've been thinking more about adding a text message as an option instead of email because iOS and macOS (and Android?) do such a nice job now of auto-filling codes, so you don't have to leave the web browser to check email. I know it's not the same as passwords, but might help.
Miraz Jordan @manton Thanks. A particular use case for me recently was a stinking hot day and a traffic accident that closed the only road for hours with my phone battery low. I turned round and went back to Levin to sit in the cool Library and use their computers. I’ll just log in to Micro.Blog, I thought. Then I had to log in to email to get the link to click. (Apart from the fact of remembering which email to check as I have 3 blogs and 3 separate email addresses). A 6-digit code texted to me would have worked well.
Miraz Jordan @manton — Which raises the question : can 3 separate Micro.Blog accounts all use one single address for text messages?
Manton Reece Good question. I think "yes". We'd need to consider the security implications, but personally I'd want the same number on multiple accounts.
Phi.Sanders @manton can you do it via iMessage instead of SMS ('email' vs 'phone number')?
Manton Reece @SciPhi I'd love to, but probably not. I think I would need to run a Mac server and script it, and I can see some things going wrong with that.
Rene van Belzen @pimoore Didn’t Steve Gibson of GRC make a secure passwordless login system called SQRL?
Devon Greene @pimoore Perhaps that's a future extension/benefit of 'Sign in with Apple' could provide?