Editorial Note: Here at LawLytics, we love other technologies that can make everyone’s life easier. In this post Jake reviews an online profile manager that can make your life and other’s lives easier.
Let’s face it, there are too many logins on the internet. You’ve got Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, just to name a few. Don’t you wish there was some single login you could use? Well, there is. In fact, you’ve got two options: Facebook or Gravatar. This blog post is going to focus on Gravatar.
Gravatar utilizes a single login that is used widely across the internet. It allows you to log into many different sites and use the exact same picture and profile for each. Disqus, the commenting management system for our LawLytics blog, is one example of a site using this is. We encourage you to use your Gravatar profile to login and comment on our blog posts. Go ahead, try it now.
While some people say that Facebook’s login is easier, Facebook brings up a slew of security and privacy issues. For example, on Sunday, August 18, a hacker had to prove to Facebook there were security flaws in their system by posting to Mark Zuckerberg’s own personal Facebook page. When you log into a website with Facebook, they see your profile and so do other people since it is attached to your account. With Gravatar, all they get to see is a static profile, and you get to choose what’s on there. No one else can post to your profile or show unwanted information.
Gravatar is also very convenient by working in the background on new sites. For example, many sites that you didn’t even know used Gravatar will automatically see if you’ve signed into Gravatar on your computer and use that as the default profile unless told otherwise. What this means is if you’re on a site and you’d like to use their member’s area, if that site uses Gravatar and you’ve already logged into Gravatar, that site will already have you logged in. There’s nothing else to do.
When traversing the internet, I prefer to use Gravatar whenever available for the ease of and privacy it gives me. I hope you begin to use Gravatar by commenting on this blog post and the other great posts my colleagues have posted onto the LawLytics blog.
