Why does Microsoft Passport suck? | Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com: Ed Bott is out with a post this morning on why Microsoft Passport sucks and in my opinion he’s pretty much spot on and does a much better job expressing his own frustration with the technology than I did yesterday when I came across the dreaded Passport logon at an MSN Spaces blog. Although my issue was most likely a bug associated with Firefox, MSN Spaces, or Passport itself, it’s still frustrating. Passport logon is blocked by my employer (although I don’t know why, I’d suspect it has to do with regulatory issues in trying to control email at a investment company) which makes me hate it more but I also have been sufficiently annoyed by it over the past few years that I hate it even at home.
Do you know what I like about Flickr? I can log on to Flickr and never log off again. I can permanently log in. Yeah, yeah, I know *the dangers!* someone could *gasp* wrest control of my flickrstream and post God only knows what kind of photos, the travesty! But I like that logging into Flickr is (by option) a once only deal and you’re good to go. I’ve logged into Passport on the other hand dozens of times even back when I used it and yet contstantly I’m prompted to re log on and re log on and re log on. And for what? To do dumb things that don’t need security like leaving a comment on an MSN Spaces blog.
If I’m going to log on to my American Express account, yeah, I’m going to want that to be kind of secure. American Express though relies on their own user ID and password combo and not bothersome Passport. But 98% of what I do online needs very little security if any at all and where Passport tries to force itself on you in those situations it’s just plain annoying.
Ed’s right, Passport sucks and Microsoft should kill it.