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I looked at someone's profile and it said Unregistered User. What does that mean?

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They haven't registered themselves on the site. They are logged in with a long living cookie tied to a specific PC/webbrowser. They won't be able to login using the same account on other PCs/webbrowsers.

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    They can, by carrying around the cookie in a text file. I did that for quite some time before going through the effort of setting up openid. Mar 5, 2012 at 23:25
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    In my world, the "effort" of carrying a cookie around in a text file every where I go is substantially greater than the effort required to set up an OpenID. I guess maybe if you don't already have any other presence on the Internet, an OpenID might be difficult to set up... Mar 6, 2012 at 0:34
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    So if I come here and register as an SO/SE user and login with e-mail and password, what's that? I nowhere see any OpenID from SO/SE that I could use in other place, but my bio doesn't show "Unregistered". Aug 30, 2012 at 9:04
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    @ShegitBrahm Going by your description, you're using Stack Exchange's own OpenID provider. You can use it on other sites by entering the URL openid.stackexchange.com. Nov 16, 2014 at 11:26
  • @CodyGray This can still be useful if your firewall blocks access to the specific OpenID provider. Another trick is to use e.g. portable firefox or chrome and carry it on a stick to the firewalled PC (unless that's also blocked, of course). Mar 13, 2016 at 14:39
  • @Maarten So use a different OpenID provider? Mar 14, 2016 at 5:18
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    OpenID support is closing this mid-year. Mar 28, 2018 at 16:08

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