{"id":48251,"date":"2012-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/oauth-2-0-101\/"},"modified":"2023-03-07T09:38:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T09:38:20","slug":"oauth-2-0-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/2\/28834\/internet\/web-services\/oauth-20-101","title":{"rendered":"OAuth 2.0 101"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many luxury cars come with a valet key. It is a special key you give the parking attendant and unlike your regular key, will only allow the car to be driven a short distance while blocking access to the trunk and the onboard cell phone. Regardless of the restrictions the valet key imposes, the idea is very clever. You give someone limited access to your car with a special key, while using another key to unlock everything else. <\/span>– The Official Guide to OAuth 1.0<\/p>\n

That’s how the community-based specification guidelines explained OAuth<\/a> way back in 2007. And while OAuth 2.0 is a completely new protocol, the same description still applies – OAuth remains a way for users to grant third-party access (and limited access) to their resources without sharing their passwords.<\/p>\n

If you are on the Internet regularly, chances are you have come across a site that uses OAuth. After all, the world’s biggest websites, such as Facebook, Google, MySpace, Twitter, Photobcuket, Yahoo, Evernote and Vimeo, use this authentication standard. Read on to learn more about this standard, and why the next generation, OAuth 2.0<\/a>, is still being used on a relatively experimental basis.<\/p>\n

What Is OAuth 2.0?<\/span><\/h2>\n

First, you need to know what OAuth, as a protocol, does: It allows application programming interface<\/a> authorization between two Web or desktop apps. As a result, websites are able to share protected resources with other websites and services.<\/p>\n

For example, if you play Scramble with friends on your iPad, you could enter your Facebook credentials, allowing the game to look through your friends list to see which of them are playing the game – and invite others to join. Or you could connect with friends on Google+ based on who’s following you on Twitter. These type of applications are handy for users, but they involve giving one site or program access to information about you on another site.<\/p>\n

OAuth 2.0 works much like the first incarnation of OAuth, but it is a totally new standard altogether. This means that it is not backward compatible<\/a> with OAuth 1.0. Version 2.0 cleaned up many of the problems with the original OAuth and made improvements.<\/p>\n

While basically retaining the architecture of the first version, 2.0 improved on:<\/p>\n