OpenSC provides a set of utilities to access smart cards. It mainly
focuses on cards that support cryptographic operations. It facilitates
their use in security applications such as mail encryption,
authentication, and digital signature. OpenSC implements the PKCS#11
API. Applications supporting this API, such as Mozilla Firefox and
Thunderbird, can use it. OpenSC implements the PKCS#15 standard and aims
to be compatible with every software that does so, too.

Before purchasing any cards, please read carefully documentation on the
web pageonly some cards are supported. Not only card type matters, but
also card version, card OS version and preloaded applet. Only subset of
possible operations may be supported for your card. Card initialization
may require third party proprietary software.