If You Say You'll Remember Me, Please Do So

Today's rant brought to you by The Nonusability Board of Broken Promises

This is a rant, and nothing but a rant. I am sick and tired of sites that promise to remember me if I will only take the time to place a little checkmark in a little box. They say that by doing so, I won't have to re-login in the future. So often, they are nothing but BIG, FAT LIARS.

I can live with the sites that forget about me if I haven't shown up for an extended period of time. Ok, maybe you had some time-limited cookie set or something like that, and I went beyond that limit. No problem. I can forgive that.

But the sites that can't remember me from one minute to the next drive me crazy! This seems to happen most often with the new-fangled whiz-bang Ajax-driven login screens, although it occasionally happens with old-fashioned forms as well.

It's not my fault, at least I don't think so. I've got my browser set to accept cookies, and my browser has javascript and java enabled. But does that help? NO!

I go to one of these sites.
I place the little checkmark into the little box.
I enter my login details and submit.
I surf the site as needed.
I close my browser.
Oh no, I forgot to do something at that site.
I open my browser.
I go back to the site.
Ack! I'm no longer logged in! It didn't remember me! Not even for 5 seconds. Grrrr.

One such site is even owned by someone we all know quite well, but I won't name names. So if any of you own a site that has a Remember Me checkbox, please run it through a few tests to make sure it actually works! If it doesn't work, and you can't get it to work, then get rid of it please. There, I've gotten that off my chest. Whew.