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Most often, we log in to web applications by providing a user name and password in a HTML page. This type of authentication systems are system is called form-based authentication systems. However, there are several other ways where the need for user name and password is eliminated when the user is already authenticated. Integrated Windows Authentication is one such method. It is known as a browser-based authentication mechanism because the authentication is handled by the browser. The web browser gets the credentials of the windows Windows logged in user and uses those credentials to authenticate the user with the help of the server and Active Directory. The only requirement for the user is to simply enter the Protected web application's URL in the browser, and the browser and server takes care of the rest of the authentication and automatically logs the user in (provided that the user is in the same domain and is a valid and authorized user to log in). If the authentication fails, the user is prompted to enter valid credentials to log in to the system.
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