I had written a detailed article about Clef on WPCypher.com blog recently after I had installed it on several of my smaller blogs but now that experiment is over and I decided Clef was worth installing on Dragon Blogger.
Clef is one part mobile application and one part website plugin/Wordpress plugin or browser extension. You download and install the free Clef Android or iOS application and then you register the app to your Clef profile. Once done you can configure Clef on any of your sites, or use Waltz which is a Chrome extension that leverages Clef to give you the security of Clef for any website you log into. The first time you log in to any site with Waltz, you will be asked for your username and password. Waltz stores an encrypted version of your credentials in your browser’s local storage. Your credentials are encrypted using AES. The ciphers are 2048-bit random keys generated by Cy, so it is a very secure method of encryption for the password stored locally if it were to be compromised.
For my sites I just used the Clef WordPress plugin and I did install Waltz and hook it up for my Twitter account for testing, there is an awesome convenience of just signing in with your phone once and then being logged in to all 7 of my WordPress blogs instantly just by holding my phone up to the screen for a second or two.
See my video of signing into Dragon Blogger with Clef (forgive the shakiness of holding the camera manually).
Clef is a great option for those with Android or iOS phones and who want to make their sites more secure by removing passwords an requiring Clef authentication, you can also leave passwords as a failback mechanism, but removing them entirely is awesome too. Clef is more secure than QR Codes and establishes a fantastic single sign on system across all of your sites synced with your Clef profile. This allows you to get your 1 hour idle timeout, or set it to unlimited. You can also logout of all of your sites instantly with 1 touch of the “Logoff Button” on your Clef app.
I really like using Clef as an easy way to log into all of my 7 WordPress blogs and maintain an active session until I want to log out of all of them at the same time, it is convenient and more secure than using the same or different passwords for all 7 sites.
Clef 2.0 was recently released for WordPress and I can tell you it makes integrating your blog with Clef even easier and faster than the 1.0 version, you are given the steps right as you click activate, you don’t have to go into Clef settings first and you pair your site and configure it in less than 30 seconds to use Clef for your WordPress login.
It really is a one click setup, where you just click, sync your site with the Clef app and BOOM you have your site configured for Clef, all you need to then do is choose which roles you want to require or allow to use Clef.
The only thing is Clef will only recognize default WordPress roles defined in the database when it emails out your users to let them know they can use Clef to login, it won’t recognize any custom roles created with a plugin like WP-Members or another WordPress role plugin.
You can read my detailed review on Clef here: http://www.wpcypher.com/clef-offer-single-sign-wordpress-sites
Have you tried Clef for WordPress yet, or have you used Waltz for Facebook or Twitter? Share your thoughts on the service.
I have been obsessed with computers, tech, gadgets and games since the early 1980’s having grown up on the Commodore 64 and Amiga computers.
By day I work in the IT Security Industry and have been in IT for over 20 years. On my spare time I am a Vlogger, Blogger, Streamer, Gadget Reviewer, affiliate marketer, influencer and entertainer. I am also an avid movie fan, TV Show fan, Anime fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.