What is Trezor Bridge?
Trezor Bridge is a lightweight background service that runs on your computer and enables your browser to detect and communicate with your Trezor hardware wallet. Without Bridge installed, most browsers cannot directly interact with USB devices for security reasons. The software acts as a secure “translator” between your browser and Trezor, ensuring every operation—especially sensitive ones like sending crypto or exporting keys—requires approval on your physical device.
Why Is Trezor Bridge Important?
Modern browsers limit access to hardware devices due to security restrictions. Trezor Bridge bypasses these limitations by managing a secure local channel between your computer and device. This prevents unauthorized websites from interacting with your wallet and ensures that only trusted applications can request access and actions.
- Secure Transaction Signing: All sensitive operations must be confirmed on your Trezor device.
- Browser Compatibility: Works with Chrome, Brave, and Firefox through Trezor Suite Web.
- Automatic Updates: Ensures continuous compatibility and improved performance.
- Offline Safety: Private keys never leave your hardware wallet.
How Trezor Bridge Works
When you initiate an action in a web wallet or Trezor Suite, the browser sends a request to Trezor Bridge, which forwards the command to your connected hardware device. Your Trezor then displays the details on its secure screen. After you physically confirm the action, the signed data travels back through the Bridge service to your browser or app, which completes the process.
This workflow ensures that even if malware is present on your computer, it cannot sign or approve any transactions without your physical input on the device itself.
Key Features of Trezor Bridge
- Seamless Browser Communication: Enables real-time data flow between Trezor Suite Web and the device.
- Secure Local Process: Runs privately on your machine and never accesses the internet.
- High Reliability: Works in the background with minimal CPU or RAM usage.
- Wide Ecosystem Support: Compatible with many third‑party apps and wallets.
Security Practices
Trezor Bridge maintains Trezor’s core philosophy: your private keys must always stay offline. Even while using Bridge, your device remains the only authority for signing actions. You should always verify transaction details carefully on your Trezor screen before confirming.
- Never type your recovery seed into a computer or phone.
- Download Bridge only from the official Trezor website.
- Avoid suspicious extensions that may interfere with USB access.
- Keep Trezor firmware and Trezor Suite updated.