How it works
Private from the ground up. Here’s how, in plain English.
None of this is a setting someone could switch off. It’s how the whole thing is built, from the invitation to the moment an app opens.
01 / The way in
Four steps between you and your data.
Every visit takes the same route. The steps with a dot are live: they show how they’re doing right now.
- Invite
You’re invited in
There is no sign-up page. You only get an account if someone invites you, by name, by email.
- Passkey
You prove it’s you
Your phone or laptop keeps a passkey. To sign in, you use your fingerprint, your face or your PIN. Nothing to type, and nothing a scam can steal.
- Private VPN
You come in through a private tunnel
A small app on your device opens a private, encrypted connection. The apps only open for people who come in this way.
- The apps
You use them
Photos, passwords, files, films. The apps work like any others, but they are yours, not rented from Big Tech.
02 / The private VPN
A private tunnel only members can find.
The VPN uses WireGuard, a small, modern and widely trusted piece of software. Here’s what it does for you.
WireGuardchecking…
- Keys instead of passwords
- Every device has its own secret key, and it never leaves the device. The VPN ignores anything that isn’t signed with a key it knows. There is no login screen for anyone to attack.
- Invisible to strangers
- To everyone else on the internet, the VPN doesn’t answer at all. You can’t knock on a door you can’t find.
- New keys every few minutes
- Every couple of minutes, your device and the server swap to fresh keys. Even if a key were stolen one day, it couldn’t unlock anything sent before.
- Adverts blocked on the way
- While you’re on the VPN, every website your device looks up is checked by AdGuard Home first. Adverts, trackers and known bad sites are blocked before they load, for every app on your device, not just the browser.
03 / Signing in
Passkeys, not passwords.
One sign-in works for every app. It’s run by Pocket ID. The password manager, Vaultwarden, has its own sign-in on purpose, so it still opens even if everything else is down.
Pocket IDchecking…
- Nothing to steal
- A passkey comes in two halves. The secret half stays on your device. The server only keeps the other half, which is useless to a thief on its own.
- Nothing to fall for
- A passkey only works on the real website it was made for. A fake login page gets nothing, however real it looks.
- Nothing to remember
- No password to make up, reuse or forget. Your fingerprint, your face or your device’s PIN unlocks it.
04 / Watched
Checked day and night, in public.
A tool called Uptime Kuma checks every service around the clock. If something goes wrong, we hear about it first. The results are public, on this site and on the status page.
Open the status page ↗05 / Open source
Nothing is hidden.
Every app is open source, which means its code is public. Anyone can read it, so you don’t have to take anyone’s word for what it does. And your data stays in normal formats you can take with you.