Why we decided to use Gravatar

A lot of people have been asking how to use Gravatar, and why we use it.

How does Gravatar work?

Once you register an account with us, you also type in your email address. What then happens when someone views a webpage with your avatar on it, is our server securely hashes your email address, and sends the hash off to the Gravatar server.

Take a look at my avatar for example, right click on it and view source. The image URL is:

gravatar.com/avatar/fc216778f638c87af86a6241ca36b3a2

The gobbledegook at the end is the hash of my email. No one will be able to tell what your email address is, we never send that raw data over to Gravatar!

Now try clicking on that link:

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/fc216778f638c87af86a6241ca36b3a2

If you don't have a Gravatar account, we display a default avatar. If you DO have a Gravatar account, it sends us back the avatar you chose!

New to Gravatar?

Registering on Gravatar is super easy and quick. Just click sign up, enter the same email address you signed up to this site with, and click the email confirmation link. You can then choose your avatar, and conveniently, it will also appear on a lot of other sites! One avatar to rule them all!

Why did we choose it?

There are a lot of benefits using Gravatar:

• We don't need to server avatars, we save a lot of bandwidth!
• We can automatically block offensive or non family safe images, currently the site only accepts PG or lower avatars
• A lot of people already use Gravatar, and will like it's implementation on here
• This site should load faster and resources downloaded from multiple locations can be downloaded in parallel
• The gravatar API is really useful, it allows us to resize your avatar to whatever size we want (for different parts of the site) really easily

I hope you all understand why we made this choice now, and see the benefits and usefullness of it all. We understand for some of you it's another thing to sign up for, but as users of Gravatar ourselves we found the whole process really quick and easy, and extremely convenient!

I don't know if i am doing something wrong but i have a gravatar account but my avatar still remains at the default avatar within scirra's forums.

Im still using my previous avatar from the old forums.

The email in your profile and the email your gravatar is associated with have to match. Maybe double check them?

Ah yes i finally figured it out <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Gravatar changes can sometimes take up to 1 hour (supposedly) to take effect, in all my experiences it's very quick/instant usually.

hmm its strange..

after almost 2 days, i haven't got my avatar yet :S

used same email on both sites... i have used the check on gravatar, but its the same and image is ok in all ratings.. what is the problem?

how i can add my gravatar??

gravatar.com/avatar/17fd64c5f555a56118726ca84f3ed7aa.png

thanks.

luisgmolina, gravatar images take an hour or so to update on our website sometimes.

how i can add my gravatar??

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/17fd64c5f555a56118726ca84f3ed7aa.png

thanks.

Not sure if you're aware but images from Gravatar are added to this site automatically, as long as you used the exact same email address on both accounts.

I prefer PHP, You can't search specific topics.

Why i need a username to login there? If the Mail adresses are linked, i dont see a reason to provide another username for an avatar.

At the end, i guess this system is a true security risk for mail, usernames and password.

Yes everyone now knows that the hash for your email is fd97776e49637bd4c1504eafc006b690.

Xeed I don't think it's a considerable risk at all. Only the hash is transmitted, as newt pointed out, theoretically a hash can be cracked but it would take a very very long time for an attacker to do so, and for what purpose?

Most users use the same password there and on forums etc, and i dont know how these are stored there. If some scriptkiddies may hack the gravatar server, they got mail, user and pw for many users at many sites.

However, my username is already taken, and since scirra.com is the only site i've seen who uses this system before i will not use it, cause it makes no sense for me to register on a new site to use the avatar here. <img src="smileys/smiley13.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

That's ok, having an avatar isn't mandatory so if you don't want one that is fine!

Yes you can argue that if someone hacks gravatar they will have your email and password, but why not use unique passwords on every website?