I understand that everyone offers a profile module, and I agree that this will work well on small sites if you have too many user profile fields and not too many users ... but it can be pigs on larger sites.
I would also like to mention the Content Profile module, which allows you to create a node type and use it to extend user information, which also has the advantage of giving you CCK width and width for creating fields, rather than getting stuck with a limited profile choice.
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