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Following / Friend Connect Requires Separate Login

We see confusion occasionally from bloggers trying to use Following or Friend Connect
I want to Follow this person, but when I click on the Follow button I'm asked to sign in. I'm already signed in to my blog, am I being hacked?
or
I clicked on the users picture. Where is the button to Block the user?
Both questions come from someone who isn't aware that Following / Friend Connect are applications separated from Blogger, and separated intentionally.

The Following / Friend Connect gadgets contain iframes, with the frame code sourced from outside "BlogSpot.com" (or whatever domain your blog is published to).
<div style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); width: 100%; height: 264px;" id="div-xxxxxxxxxxxxx" class="gadgets-gadget-container"><div id="gfc_iframe_nnnnnnnnn_0_body" style="height: 264px;"><iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" style="width: 100%; height: 264px;" name="gfc_iframe_nnnnnnnnn_0" id="gfc_iframe_nnnnnnnnn_0"/></div></div>

This lets you use whatever Google (or non Google) account that you wish, to Follow any blog - and that's independent of whatever Blogger account that you might, or might not, have open while you maintain your blog. And it requires that you login, separately, to the Follower or Friend Connect gadget on your blog (or whatever blog that you are surfing).

Two processes - Blogger and Following / Friend Connect. And two separate logins, too, producing the occasional odd result.

In order for you to do anything with Following, such as Block Followers, you have to be logged in to Following - within the Followers IFrame - as a blog administrator. How you are logged in to Blogger, from the navbar, is not relevant - and this is one major difference between the navbar "Follow Blog" link and the Followers gadget.

You need to be aware of the possibilities for becoming a Follower, and for managing the Following community for your blog - and use the right account, in the right way.

Note that the Followers gadget allows you to Follow using any of several different community profiles. You have to login to the right one, to Follow any blog! If you wish to manage your Follower profile, such as the blogs that you Follow, you have to be logged in using the right Followers profile.

If you wish to manage the people that Follow your blog, you have to be logged in using a Blogger profile that has administrative access to the blog. Using the dashboard Manage button will let you manage the blogs that you Follow using that Blogger profile, and the people who Follow that blog, only.

Another issue here is security. Following presents yet another face of Google, and provides you (your computer) yet another possible symptom for a security settings problem. If you see a large blank space where your Followers gadget should be, you're going to have to check security devices and settings in your browser, your computer, and your network. Following / Friend Connect is a separate section of Google, and you (your readers) may have to enable it separately.

Following / Friend Connect is a major application, yet it's deceptively small when you look at it on your blog.

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Comments

Soren said…
This is ridiculous. I just want to delete a follower and I suddenly feel like I have to take a course in something. Why isn't there a simple solution to this problem. A button? A click to something that allows for a "delete"? This is not user-friendly.
Nitecruzr said…
You login to Following separately, because some bloggers and sorfers of Blogger blogs don't use a Google account, or don't want to use the same account that they use to maintain their blogs. Just do it. Login.
pepe said…
The follower tag remains on my dashboard and the follower from somewhere remains. There are no buttons to remove the whole shebang. I do not have a followers gadget. I am getting plenty of readers, I don't mind that. But I don't like someone interfering with what I thought was my blog.
pepe said…
I have now delete all the gadgets on my blog, including the archives. There are none there that I can see. The follower is still there and the Flag on the dashboard.
Google says they cannot do anything about it. Blogger says they cannot do anything about it. The follower departments says they are doing me a big favor. How about that?
syaftome said…
hi there..
i'm confuse right now...
i followed a few blogs using that google friend connect gadgets...
but then, it doesn't show up in my dashboard...
particularly in my blog reading list...

why is this happening?
Ritzy said…
i am terrible confused.

i dont know why but my own blog is listed on the "following" list.
How do I delete it?

I log into blogger, clicked manage, then it brings me to a page with settings, however after that, it tells me to log in, and it prevents my blog log in.

How should I delete it?
I got very confused about your explanation! Many of us are not so good with this computerstuff you know...
O.K, I will fix another log-in for follower/friend. But this code, do I have to use it somewhere?
And what happens with the blogs I'm already following? Am I still a follower and just my e-mail changes?

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