Chapter 1. Why Should I Care About OAuth 2.0?

As an application developer, you may have heard the term OAuth 2.0 thrown around a lot. OAuth 2.0 has gained wide adoption by web service and software companies around the world, and is integral to the way these companies interact and share information. But what exactly is it? In a nutshell…

OAuth 2.0 is a protocol that allows distinct parties to share information and resources in a secure and reliable manner.

This is the major tenet of the OAuth 2.0 protocol, which we will spend the rest of the book learning about and utilizing. Also, in this chapter, we will introduce the sample application that we will be building throughout this book, The World's Most Interesting Infographic Generator.

Note

What about OAuth 1.0?

Built with the same motivation, OAuth 1.0 was designed and ratified in 2007. However, it was criticized for being overly complex and also had issues with imprecise specifications, which led to insecure implementations. All of these issues contributed to poor adoption for OAuth 1.0, and eventually led to the design and creation of OAuth 2.0. OAuth 2.0 is the successor to OAuth 1.0.

It is also important to note that OAuth 2.0 is not backwards compatible with OAuth 1.0, and so OAuth 2.0 applications cannot integrate with OAuth 1.0 service providers.