Passwords play an important role in any internet user’s experience. After all, it is the most universal way to authenticate a user online. Wether you want to check your email, log-in to a social network, banking or any other website, chances are that you will have to set up an account and verify yourself every time you log into the site. In a study conducted by Microsoft it was found out that an average internet user has about 25 accounts online that require passwords. Internet gurus have always advised to use separate passwords for each account but if you adhere to that advice, it can become almost impossible to remember the correct password associated with each of our account.

Uniclau is a web based startup that can revolutionize the way users enter their password and it makes apt use of the device that is always with us – our mobile phone. The use of a cell phone to authenticate a user is certainly not new, and we had earlier reviewed the use of mobile phone to make your google account more secure.

With Uniclau you can do away with the hassle of remembering the username and password for any of your online account. To use the service, visit the Uniclau home page and install the uniclau extension for your browser and also the application for your iPhone or Android phone. Once that is taken care of, open the application from your phone. First time users will be prompted to set a pin and their email address which will have to be verified.

Installing the extension on your browser will display a QR Code next to the login field whenever you visit a website. All you need to do is scan this code from the uniclau application on your phone. For the first time for every website, you will have to enter the username and password associated with that account on your phone. For every subsequent access, scanning the code will automatically log you into the website on your browser.

Since scanning the QR code from your phone is all that is needed to log into a website, it can become risky if you ever lose your phone. However, that is also taken care of and a pin needed to start the application ensures that only an authorized person can use the unicalu app on the phone. In fact, added security measures such as defining friends and saving a PUK code can even protect you even when you lose your phone or your associated email id gets compromised.

Overall, uniclau is an impressive service that can remove all the woes of incorrect password attempts due to different password for each of our online account. Having said that, the service can also be slightly annoying at times as it occasionally displays the QR code when there is no login field on the page. However, I am pretty sure that upcoming updates will fix the problem.

So, if you have a working internet connection on your smart phone and a long list of passwords to remember, Uniclau is certainly the way to go.

How do you prefer to manage your passwords ?

Gourav: Gourav Mittal is a Computer Science Engineer who loves to blog in his free time. He blogs primarily at Techrav and also maintains Sanjay Tea Company