Why is the http auth UI so poor in browsers?

Question

Why isn't there a logout button? Why no list of "websites you're logged into"? Is it because of some issue with the HTTP specs?

Life would be much easier for web developers if they could actually rely on HTTP auth ...

Answer 1

As far as HTTP is concerned, it is stateless. One of the main reasons why Internet is scalable.

Answer 2

No technical reason. I suppose if anything, the auth UI is neglected because fewer and fewer web sites are still using HTTP Basic Authentication, trending more towards various cookie-related login schemes... precisely because the auth UI is so poor!

One could probably hack together a Firefox add-on to do it quite easily, which would be the quickest fix. (And the same goes for the other question with the poor file upload UI too.) I'd use it!

Answer 3

Have you entered a bug report for major browsers ? (At least, ones with bug trackers, Firefox, Chrome (Chromium) etc.

List of open HTTP Auth sessions would be useful.