Your identity deserves real control ...

Phrase-Lock | Your Login Wallet - Our Mission

The difference between Phrase-Lock and the many other password managers out there is that Phrase-Lock goes far beyond what traditional password managers are even capable of. From the very beginning, our goal was to be able to enter secure passwords immediately after booting up a computer or directly on the lock screen. And we can do that because we don’t rely on browser plugins; instead, we take a decisive technological leap forward.
We wanted to centralize everything important in a single place—on the smartphone. Smartphones have become an indispensable part of our lives, and if there is one logical place where our digital identities are best kept, it is right there. So all we had to do was create a connection between the smartphone and the computer—in such a way that our users have no dependencies and this connection remains completely transparent. What’s more: Anyone who wants to can even set up this connection themselves. We expressly support this.
And because there’s nothing to sync or sync up with Phrase‑Lock—since all login data is stored in a single place—we don’t view our solution as a password manager. There’s nothing complicated to manage. For us, Phrase‑Lock is a wallet where your digital identities are centralized. That’s exactly how we see our mission.

The most important questions

• How much does Phrase-Lock cost?
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  Phrase-Lock is free! You can install and use everything without paying a single cent. You also don’t need to create an account or give us your email address. We try to answer every possible question here on our site to help you get started, since we can’t offer free support for financial reasons.
• How do we make money?
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  We generate revenue from paid licenses. Our licensing terms require professional users to use paid full versions. Of course, the evaluation period is an exception to this rule. We also offer paid support services and support level agreements.
• What are the components of Phrase-Lock?
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  Phrase-Lock consists of three parts:
  • The Phrase-Lock App for your login credentials,
  • the Phrase-Lock Port software package for Windows and Apple,
  • and a broker service that connects smartphones and PCs.
  
  We use the open standard protocol MQTT as the intermediary service. We use the Mosquitto MQTT broker as the intermediary service. It has proven to be extremely stable and is available to everyone as open-source software.
• How can I connect my smartphone to my PC on my own?
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  We exclusively use and support the MQTT protocol for communication between smartphones and PCs. You can use any MQTT broker of your choice, and we’ll explain what you need to know to ensure a secure setup. However, paid licenses are required, as only these allow you to customize the connection settings. We use the Mosquitto MQTT broker ourselves, but any other broker is just as suitable. Only the security settings are relevant.
  
  We are happy to provide our scripts and settings. The use of client certificates is mandatory for us to keep unauthorized third parties out of the network. We have extensive experience in this area and are happy to help you set up your own infrastructure. It’s less complicated than it might seem.
• What do I need to install on my Windows or Apple computer?
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  We provide the software packages you need for free under “Installation.” For Windows, there are two packages, depending on the architecture. If you're not sure which one is right for you, we'll figure it out together. For Apple computers, there is only one package, because we only support devices that are already equipped with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, etc.). For Windows, we require Windows 11, as Microsoft no longer provides support for Windows 10.
  You must have admin rights on the computer in question, otherwise the necessary drivers cannot be fully installed. You can find the individual installation steps under How-To.
  A KMDF or DEXT driver will be installed on your computer. That is why you need admin rights. These are drivers that are integrated into your operating system to allow you to enter your login data and credentials. These drivers emulate a keyboard and a FIDO2 token. FIDO2 is the technological basis for Passkey. Naturally, Phrase-Lock supports this as well. These drivers have been checked for malicious code and signed by Microsoft and Apple. You can trust this installation, and if you wish, you can verify the signatures.
• How does entering passwords work?
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  For example, when you want to enter a password, the Phrase-Lock app establishes a connection to your computer and sends the password. On your computer, the Phrase-Lock Port installation receives the sent password and enters it using keyboard emulation at the current cursor position.
  The same principle applies when you want to log in with a passkey or generate a new passkey. The Phrase-Lock app is connected and receives the request from the PC installation—Phrase-Lock Port—and the protocol begins to run.
  
  Technically speaking, the operating systems detect an additional keyboard connected via USB and a FIDO token. This can be easily verified in Device Manager, particularly on Windows. However, these drivers are not keyloggers or any other type of threat. This is not even possible, because the libraries provided by Apple and Microsoft do not allow or support this type of access at all. Apple prevents this as well. KMDF and DEXT drivers naturally have special privileges and must have them, because otherwise they would not function.
• What happened to the Phrase-Lock USB keys? Are they no longer available?
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  It no longer exists in the form our customers and users have known it so far. One of the reasons is that the hardware business is much more difficult than we had anticipated. That was the bad news; now for the good news:
  You no longer need USB hardware for Apple computers because Phrase-Lock Port can also be operated in Bluetooth mode on Apple computers. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible for Windows. Windows does not support software that operates as a so-called Bluetooth peripheral
  
  However, we will continue to support USB hardware tokens in the future; we just won’t be selling them anymore. We will only provide the software for them. We support the Nordic nRF52840 chip and the RayTec MDBT50Q-CX and MDBT50Q-RX tokens. As soon as the necessary software/firmware is ready, we will announce it here.