Leveraging on Facebook’s Social Authentication

The usual workflow of being authenticated into an application is that you first fill a registration form, then use the information you gave out to log into the application.The log in credentials are mostly an email/username and a password.While this may not seem to be a complicated process, it may become cumbersome should you need to do this repeatedly over a number of applications, on a frequent basis.

Social authentication seems to solve this problem.A user doesn’t need to create any new account. Authentication is based on a social identity that has already been created by a user. No form is filled.Access into an application is simplified to a faster and easier process of just clicking on a button hence I would say improving your user experience. Facebook Login is an example of a social authentication that is widely used.

In an era where people are increasingly becoming aware of cyber security, applications now require users to use very complex password patterns which sometimes in all honesty are very hard to remember.Users don’t have to remember these complex passwords when they use a social login.From a developer’s perspective, Facebook Login also saves you the hustle of having to build your own authentication service.

A site owner also benefits from using Facebook login.Data is a vital necessity when it comes to decision making.When users log into an application with Facebook login, they may choose to share some information on their profile e.g email, address and geographical location.This information can then be used for marketing purposes or even to analyze trends.A site owner will also not have the burden of securing a user’s online identity as this role is transferred to Facebook who handle it from their end.

There are many other advantages of using Facebook Login as a process for authentication. Here is a link which provides documentation and shows how you could implement Facebook Login in your application.