With almost every website on the Internet requiring you to log in, it’s getting harder to keep generating different secure passwords for every website. One might decide to stick with the same username and a universal password, but this isn’t a safe practice. Once an account gets hacked, the rest of them are gone.
This is why a lot of people prefer using social logins. You only need to click the “Login with Facebook” or “Login with Twitter” button and you’re registered. No boring registration form to fill, no password to memorize. Just one click and that’s it. You’re registered.
The convenience it offers beats the conventional username/password combo. I’ve been registering on websites using my Facebook account in these last few years, but I realized lately I shouldn’t have relied so much on it.
I deactivated my Facebook account
Every once in a while, I usually unplug. I might decide to go for two weeks or a whole month without social media, and this has been going on for years. Every time I do this, I always have a hard time coping because some of the websites I use occasionally require me to log in with my already deactivated social media account.
When this happens, I always try to resist the temptation of logging in back to Facebook, and that literally means I’m unable to login to quite a number of websites I use on a regular basis.
For instance, Feedly is an app I use almost every day and I had a hard time the first time I closed my Facebook account. I couldn’t read my favorite blogs the following morning because I didn’t want to re-activate my Facebook account. I had to open another Feedly account using just email and password.
What if your social account gets suspended?
Facebook is known to randomly deactivate users account. They might do it due to a false report someone filed against you, or because you violated an unspoken rule you were not aware of. We have a post that lists some of the known reasons why Facebook suspends users account.
If this happens, you lose access to all the websites you’ve registered on using your Facebook account.
You stand to lose more than just your Facebook account
Have you ever considered getting hacked? Losing your Facebook account due to a careless mistake or a password stealing trojan? If your social account gets hacked, whoever has your social login details already gets a free pass to all the websites you signed up with using your Facebook account.
Not worth it
Website owners stand to gain more when they integrate social media login because there’s likely to be more successful registrations and fewer login errors. As the user, you stand to lose if the option of a password login isn’t provided alongside social login.
If you eventually decide to deactivate your social account or if you get suspended on the platform, it’s all gone. Although a lot of people love the convenience, it’s really time to stop relying on social login. It’s not worth it.
Ironically, this website has a social login button that allows you to sign up and log in via Facebook to the forum (for now). Why am I still keeping it when I’m against it? The clue is under the last sub-heading.
