Method of switching internet personas based on URL

Abstract

A method of communicating with a remote site on a network by establishing different user personas respectively associated with different remote sites on the network, each user persona containing one or more attributes used in accessing the remote sites, and then accessing a specific one of the remote sites using the attributes in a specific one of the user personas that is associated with the specific remote site. The specific remote site can be associated with the specific user persona by a universal resource locator (URL), e.g., for web sites on the Internet, and the accessing is automatically performed in response to matching of the URL of the specific remote site to the URL associated with the specific user persona. A default persona can be used for any remote site having no specifically associated user persona. The attributes in the user personas can provide various functions such as indicating whether Java programming is enabled for the specific remote site or whether “cookies” are enabled for the specific remote site. The attributes can also define a username for the specific remote site. A user persona can be established when a bookmark is created for the specific remote site.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention generally relates to computer systems, and more particularly to a method of accessing remote sites on a network such as the Internet, where the remote sites utilize user information such as user names, passwords, etc., for access. [0003] 2. Description of the Related Art [0004] A generalized computing network 2 is shown in FIG. 1. Network 2 has several client workstations 3a, 3b, 3c, and 3d which are interconnected via a communications infrastructure 4. Network 2 additionally has servers 5a, 5b. Each server is essentially a stand-alone computer system (having one or more processors, memory devices, and communications devices), but has been adapted to primarily provide information to individual users at client workstations 3a-3d. The information provided by a server can be in the form of programs which run locally on a given client, or in the form of data such as files used by other programs. Co...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides an improved method for communicating with remote network sites. It allows users to automatically associate preferences or attributes with specific web pages or emails. The method uses user personas that contain attributes for accessing the remote sites. The user personas can be established when bookmarks are created for the specific remote sites. The technical effects of this invention include improved efficiency and ease of use for accessing remote sites and better user experience.

Problems solved by technology

While Java applets can greatly enhance the capabilities of a web page, they may also introduce security and other issues.

This capability can, however, create problems.

A user may want to explore some new web sites and, in doing so, disable Java for security reasons, but when this user visits old, reliable sites that require Java, the web pages will not be properly presented unless the user manually edits the configuration to re-enable Java.

If a user repeatedly visits several web sites where Java is to be disabled, but additionally repeatedly visits web sites requiring Java, it can become very cumbersome for the user to constantly change the Java preference back and forth.

Cookies can, however, also raise security issues and may be undesirable in certain cases.

If a user wants to have different usernames or email addresses for different web sites, the identity information must be manually re-entered before visiting each site, which again is extremely inconvenient.

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