Google Accounts, With Blogger Profiles, Are Limited

We're seeing a few questions, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, about new Blogger / Google accounts - and choice of profile.

Do I have a Limited account?

This account owner just setup a new Blogger / Google account - and wants to avoid the confusion of Google+ - but sees his only alternate choice involving creation of a "Limited" account.

A Blogger account and profile is only "limited", in that it does not waste your time and resources serving Google+ to you.

Google+ is an exciting product - if you want it.

Google+ is an exciting product - offering a combination of community building, feeds, and multimedia sharing, in one package. You can spend hours, interacting with people, worldwide. If that's what you want.

Blogger is fine, for many people.

If you don't want Google+, a Blogger account, with a Blogger profile, will suit you, just fine.

Many people will be quite happy with a Blogger profile.



Google wants people excited by Google+ - but Blogger is exciting too.

Google wants to emphasise the potential of Google+ - so they describe a Blogger Profile as "Limited".

The limits may be only in your mind.

Google+ has advantages, to be sure - but it's not the end of all. Blogger accounts, and Blogger profiles, still offer exciting possibilities. A Blogger blog lets you reach - and interact with - people all over the world.

You can choose either profile - just choose, carefully.

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Google "My account" lets you setup a new #Blogger / Google account - and gives you a choice of a Google+ profile, or a "Limited" Blogger profile. This confuses some new Blogger blog owners, who don't want Google+ - and fear that they will have to settle for a Limited account.

In reality, a Blogger account with a Blogger profile will be exciting - and useful - for many new Blogger blog owners.

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McAfee WebAdvisor Blocks Blogger / Google Scripts

We have several blog owners, trying to use Blogger - and seeing warnings from McAfee WebAdvisor.

When I try to log out, I am getting a risky connection warning.

Whoa! Are you sure you want to go there?

I cannot log out of blogger.

The blog owner needs to log out from her current account.

"! Warning: Trouble ahead"

"Whoa! Are you sure you want to go there?"

This looks scary - but keep it in perspective.



If you're going to use Blogger / Google, you have to trust Blogger / Google.

Look carefully at the URL, in the advice. Is it a genuine Blogger / Google URL?

If you want to use Blogger - such as logging out so you can use a different account - you have to use the Blogger pages and scripts. You may have to instruct McAfee that you trust that URL.

You, and other McAfee customers, have to help train McAfee.

If you trust Blogger code - and as a Blogger blog publisher, you should - you need to train McAfee to not block Blogger code.

Start by clicking on "Accept the Risk", and follow instructions. Hopefully, that will send feedback to McAfee, informing them that they are reporting a false positive detection.

If you read the McAfee WebAdvisor instructions (wherever they may be), you may also find a site whitelist or similar filter setting - and you may need to add "blogger.com" and "google.com" to your whitelist. This, too, may provide feedback to McAfee.

This is one more episode in the Internet security process.

This is simply one more case of overly aggressive security. And that, like most general paranoia, is not necessarily bad - if you can keep it in proper perspective.

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McAfee Webadvisor is currently advising blog owners, who try to logout from Blogger, that the logout webpage at "accounts.blogger.com" may be "risky". Since we know that Blogger Engineering is not going to intentionally cause risk for their customers, the McAfee warning is most likely a false positive - but the message, in the McAfee warning, will not leave people in a relaxed state of mind.

Blog owners may have to use the "Accept the Risk" button, and inform McAfee that they are displaying a false positive alert.

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