Persona
This article is a stub. You can help the IndieWeb wiki by expanding it.
Persona was an email-based authentication service from Mozilla that was supported by IndieAuth for rel-me links to email addresses; it was shut down November 30, 2016.
Previously, Persona was summarized at https://web.archive.org/web/20160123160415/https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/ (original link http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/ is 404 as of 2024)
Persona is based on the BrowserID protocol for authenticating users based on email address
Some fans of Persona have started a "spiritual successor" called Portier.
Past IndieWeb Examples
Past examples of IndieWeb sites which acted as their own Persona provider, without relying on delegation to another email provider, or to the Mozilla default provider.
- ... add yourself if you have some historical documentation of doing this
Examples of IndieWeb sites which consumed (allowed login via) Persona in particular (beyond using IndieAuth to do so).
- tommorris.org - although people other than me don't really get to do much other than enjoy the fact that it says "You are signed in as {your email}".
- 2017-02-21 - functionality removed following Persona shutdown - switched to IndieAuth
Shutdowns
The following sites used to provide or accept (consume) Persona logins but no longer do. Most recent first:
- 2014-06-10 orchestrate.io is phasing out Persona login. The next time you sign in they require you to set a password.[1]
Shutdown of Persona services itself:
- Mozilla Wiki: Identity/Persona Shutdown Guidelines for Reliers
- Mozilla Wiki: Identity/Persona AAR
Here's a summary of what we got right and what we could have done better with Persona, distilled from a lot of different conversations with people inside and outside of the core team.
- 2014-03-08 Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364465
Criticisms
Reliance on JavaScript
Persona/browserid relies on JavaScript to work, forcing consumers to implement separate authentication functionality to support all users (e.g. users without JavaScript or when it fails to load).
History
- https://twitter.com/benadida/status/1135716764174753798
- "1/ On the occasion of the launch of @apple's "Sign in with Apple," allow me to indulge in a walk down a memory lane called @MozillaPersona -- the project I loved and led at Mozilla 6-8 years ago, the project that broke my heart. This is my take, I'm sure it's incomplete." @benadida June 4, 2019
- https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1135716764174753798.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20190604012538/https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1135716764174753798.html
Dead sites/domains:
- https://persona.org which redirected to
- https://myapps.mozillalabs.com/<nowiki>, and then to ** <nowiki>https://login.persona.org