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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 by OpenID. 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. –  CodesInChaos Mar 5 '12 at 23:25
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... –  Cody Gray Mar 6 '12 at 0:34
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". –  Shegit Brahm Aug 30 '12 at 9:04
@CodesInChaos: Wow... I suspect this is something you will only see on StackOverflow. Normal people does not even know how to do that. It is easier to set up an account.... –  awe Sep 17 '13 at 10:57
@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. –  Gilles Nov 16 at 11:26

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