Weave 0.4, now with autologin magic
Posted by Percy Cabello on June 28th, 2009 • Tags:
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Mozilla Labs has released an important update to Weave, a Firefox extension that aims to synchronizes the complete Firefox user experience among all computers you use and have installed Weave on, including mobile devices running Fennec (available for Windows Mobile and Maemo).

Weave is now capable of synchronizing preferences in addition to tabs, forms, passwords, history and bookmarks as seen in previous versions.It also improves startup performance, provides a better API for extension developers, and most notably, the ability to automatically log into sites, as initially demonstrated last May.

With autologin, Weave displays a golden key icon in the location bar when it recognizes a site you have already logged in in the past. You can click on the icon to select an identity and press Sign In to access the site, which is no real gain compared to what Firefox already provides. But you can also activate automatic login for the site. Once activated, Weave will fill the form and submit as soon as it recognizes it effectively removing the login step.

Weave 0.4

Auto login also support OpenID identities, perhaps the most popular and the best chance of getting a unique federated identity management system.

You can get Weave 0.4 at Mozilla Add-ons. More details on Mike Connors blog post.

Comments
Wildcatter1980 said on June 28, 2009, 9:34 am:

With autologin in Weave, would I be correct in assuming that the use of the Secure Login extension is now redundant?

Secure Login: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4429

anonymouse said on June 28, 2009, 9:54 am:

I stopped using SecureLogin some time ago for the much superior LastPass.

Crossing my fingers that the new Weave won’t interfere with the LastPass extension… that would be an absolute deal-killer for me.

anonymous said on June 29, 2009, 4:46 am:

@Wildcatter1980
Yes I just tried it, and it looks like Secure Login is now superfluous. What’s more, Weave 0.4 seems to have better integration with the Master Passwrod feature than Secure Login ever had.

Weave
Pros:
Works perfectly with master password without nagging the heck out of you when you browse in guest mode.
Some sites won’t work if you click on the key and click “Sign In”, for example dailytech.com. But for those sites you can work around, since clicking the key icon pastes the password to the login field in the website, all you have to do is clicking the weave key icon in the awesomebar then click on the website’s own login button. Secure Login can be configured to do something similar by adding the website to a special exception list.

Cons:
Still has issues with login in at http://imageshack.us although most autologin extensions have problems with that site, even Secure Login.

Wildcatter1980 said on June 29, 2009, 8:48 am:

What I like about Secure Login’s function is how it functions on pages where I have multple logins. When I click the toolbar button and it immediately displays the list of logins for that page. With the proper option set, all I need to do is select the login I want to use and Secure Login then proceeds to enter it and the password and “Enter” to log me in. By comparison, Autologin requires 4 clicks; its location bar icon, the drop down list, the login and “Sign In”.

Another quirk is the automatic sign in. Just because I load the page does not mean I want it to log in with the first login in my list of multiple logins for that page or the most recent login I used. I would rather it kick off the login process like Secure Login does as I described above; once I select the login I want to use at that moment.

If Weave’s Autologin is reworked to mimic Secure Login from the functional standpoint, then, yes, for me, it will render Secure Login redundant. Hopefully, the coding won’t be so complicated that it cannot be added in and offer the user the various options to set Autologins up however they feel most comfortable.

gxg said on July 2, 2009, 12:40 pm:

Hi!

I just installed Weave 0.4 and I am trying to set up an account.
In step 3 the wizard has a captcha, but the image does not display. I tried clicking refresh but nothing happens. I can’t go forward. Any ideas?

Thanks!

WildcatRay said on July 2, 2009, 12:44 pm:

The support forum is here: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla-labs-weave?hl=en

I believe I have seen your issue posted there.

gxg said on July 3, 2009, 4:26 am:

Thanks for the info.
I have figured it out by myself, disabling all the extensions except for Weave did the trick.
There seems to be a conflict with the NoScript add-on…

WildcatRay said on July 3, 2009, 8:31 am:

Forgotten about the need to have scripts allowed to see the captcha, an early caution from the weave folks.