Yesterday, Mozilla announced a new initiative called BrowserID, which is an easy, secure way to log in to websites without having to remember your password for each individual website. So last night I wrote the BrowserID Drupal module, which lets people log in to Drupal websites using BrowserID.
You get a choice of "Sign in" buttons to display to the user in either a block or on the existing Log in forms. Clicking the button opens the BrowserID authentication window, which securely confirms that users are logged in to its service and then gives them a choice of email addresses to use for the site. If the selected email address belongs to a user on the site, they are then logged in. That's all there is to it -- it's a surprisingly elegant process.
Seeing a Drupal module within a few days of a major product announcement is nothing new for Drupal. From Google alone, this has happened with the Google Fonts API, Google +1 button, and Google+. This is a time-to-market that is only possible in large, engaged, open-source developer communities like Drupal's which enables rapidly adapting to new technology and market developments in a way that proprietary services can't hope to match. Most proprietary CMS's likely don't have integration with any of these services yet. Drupal's first-mover advantage lets you not only keep up with but also set the blistering pace of the web. So what are you waiting for?
