My app makes the user create a new anonymous ID automatically when downloading the app and when the user logs in, for example, by Facebook, the app change UID.
The problem is when I call FirebaseAuth.instance.signInWithCredential, It creates a new UID or change to UID that links to this credential, and the anonymous ID is never deleted. If many users relogin this app, many unuse anonymous ID and data will be garbage in firebase.
I have an idea to store UID in a variable, and when sign-in is successful, I delete using that UID, but firebase allows delete UID only current account. How can I solve this?
It sounds like you want to allow a user that you signed in anonymously to upgrade to an identified account. The idiomatic way to do that is to link the Facebook account to the existing anonymous account, so that the UID remains the same. To do this, follow the process described in the documentation on account linking and in the FlutterFire documentation on linking user accounts.
Related
I want to create accounts via Firebase that only create a UID of the user. No password and no email should be requested. The user should be able to delete the app and if he downloads it again, still be able to access his UID and the associated data. In addition, this registration should never expire and the UID of the user should always remain unique and not be overwritten.
Is there a tool in Firebase that can be used to do this?
What you're describing is known as an anonymous account in Firebase, and you can create one with a single call as shown in documentation for iOS, Android, and Web.
I use Flutter and Firebase, just ask myself how to allow users to add items to cart when they're not logged in yet and keep the cart when they logging in, anyone have an idea for this ?
On Firebase you'd typically start the user off with an anonymous authentication account. With that sort of account, Firebase generates a user ID (UID) for the user, without them having to enter any credentials. You then associate the cart/items with the UID, and then when you/they are ready to identify themselves, you can sign them in with another provider, and link that to the anonymous account.
I've provided links to the documentation for Android developers above, but the same functionality is available in the FlutterFire libraries too. For example, anonymous sign-in on Flutter is as simple as:
UserCredential userCredential = await FirebaseAuth.instance.signInAnonymously();
you can store this data in a separate database SQL lite as an example
The Firebase Authentication documentation states that:
If no previous anonymous account on the platform (for your specific application) has been created, when signing in anonymously Firebase will create a new unique user which will be persisted across app restarts/page reloads. If the user signs-out and reauthenticates anonymously again, they will be signed-in with the previously created account.
Yet when I sign out as an anonymous user and sign in again, I get a new anonymous user, instead of getting signed in with the previously created account. Just to be clear, the sign-in is done by calling FirebaseAuth.instance.signInAnonymously(), and the sign-out is done by calling FirebaseAuth.instance.signOut().
That looks like a mistake in the FlutterFire documentation. Once you sign out from an anonymous account, that account's UID is lost and cannot be reclaimed.
My best guess at the intention of the documentation is that calling signInAnonymously multiple times will result in the same UID. But signing the user out, clears that UID and it can't be reclaimed. I submitted a PR to improve the documentation here.
I know UID is used because it is unique. But in my app, all of them are registered with Google ID, Google ID is also unique. Should I use UID?
yes it is better to use the uid.
From the docs:
You can let your users authenticate with Firebase using their Google Accounts by integrating Google Sign-In into your app.
So after you authenticate the users, the uid will be in the authentication page in firebase. That id will help you later in the firebase database also and it is easier to use and add in the database.
Can easily be gotten using this:
FirebaseUser user=FirebaseAuth.getInstance().getCurrentUser();
Then you can use the method getUid() to get the userid. So using it will make the work easier for you.
From the docs:
After a user signs in for the first time, a new user account is created and linked to the credentials—that is, the user name and password, phone number, or auth provider information—the user signed in with. This new account is stored as part of your Firebase project, and can be used to identify a user across every app in your project, regardless of how the user signs in.
Also check this link: https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/android/google-signin (Next Step section)
I'll suggest you use email ID instead of UID because if the user account is deleted from your Firebase Auth (either you delete it using Admin SDK, or perform a manual deletion on console), the next time user signs in with the same email ID will now give you a different UID and therefore all of your data in your database which rely on your UID won't be accessible.
However, you can't use use an email ID as it is, because Firebase key doesn't allow you to use . (dot) as keys, so just replace your . with a ,. You can find more information here.
TL;DR
Use email ID as it will always be unique unlike UID which gets generated every time a user signs in if that ID was previously deleted on Firebase Authentication server.
What happens to a user who has been anonymously signed into an app using firebase anonymous authentication when he/she factory resets his/her device. Is all the information the app had on him get lost or what does firebase use to maintain user data
An anonymous user in Firebase Authentication is not much more then their UID.
When you uninstall an app or wipe the device, that UID is wiped from the device. When the user signs in with anonymous authentication next time, they will get a new UID. There will be no connection between their previous UID and the new UID. This is the nature of anonymous authentication.
The information on the original UID will still exist on the Firebase servers, but there's no built-in way to connect the former UID and the next UID together.