I didn’t want to create a thread about this because I wanted to figure it out myself but I realised that I’d need the expert advice from this community to find a real “offline device”. The reason I needed to ask here is because I’m always receiving messages from software companies about using their cloud storage, the need for constant connections to the Internet to retrieve “user data for diagnostic purposes” to improve their software etc.
My earlier thread about using a software firewall yielded some great ideas, but now I’m thinking a hardware solution would be much more secure.
I just want a device that’s exclusively for “offline use” so I can write my personal goals and read PDF files.
What’s the real problem you’re trying to solve?
Almost any device, phone, tablet or PC can be used offline. In what way is that related to a firewall solution which imply an online device?
All the new smartphones/tablets basically require a 24/7 connection to the Internet to function properly. This is why I’m finding it so hard to find a device that’s built to be used exclusively offline.
I never thought I’d say this but I miss the 90’s era of computing!
All devices functions just fine without internet, the phone I use as google wallet, with password manager and catima installed in basically offline, it goes online only when I want a software or database update.
If you insist, you can simply download APKs, transfer it into the phone using USB or microsd and then sideload it.
In my opinion, it seems safer to use multiple devices that are designed and built for specific tasks e.g “Windows PC for Gaming”, “Linux PC for general use”, “offline tablet for personal journal entries” rather than having one PC that the user does for everything?
I think it depends on what you are doing with the devices (e.g. gaming / personal hournal / learn coding etc.) and more importantly your actual threat model. Because the definition of “safe” differs depend on that.
I’d assume you are a normal citizen who trying to avoid mass sutveillance and targetted advertising, and living in a peaceful place with rather low crime rate, if it is the case i think you just need different OSs at most, even just diffetent browser would be enough.
If physical safety of the device ot even your personal safety is at risk, thats a different story
@Average_Joe All good tips here and it certainly depends on what you want to accomplish in the aspect of privacy and security.
Besides the other answers and tips, you could also look for a old secondhand laptop which was build before 2003. Most of them have a chipset which is before WiFi era and have only LAN possibilities. Those chipsets are also not pinged/pingable by other smart-devices when the laptop is on power. To configure such a laptop you must do it by CD, usb or external harddrive and never put it on LAN/internet.
That sounds a bit extreme. We dont need an ancient hardware to run offline. Modern PCs still needs an WLAN module to connect wifi networks, ypu can simply remove that, or disable it from Bios, even OS. If it is integrated thrn remove the antennae.
With literally everything becoming tied to the cloud in some way I just want a device that I can be sure is not connected to anything. This is why I brought up 90’s computing because back then as cloud services were very rare.
I even noticed that my Brave web browser updates itself in the background even when I don’t have Brave open…
I just want a device that I can safely know is not connected to anything else.
Even buying a device and disabling wifi seems like a risk to me. Why can’t I just buy a device with no wifi built in?
I’m aware of these “Portable Apps” that some Apps have available, but 90% of these portable apps aren’t provided by the official App Creator. This is an exact example of what I mean:
Who knows what malicious code these people have put into their portable apps?
Librewolf does but not Firefox… To be honest I’d rather not use an App like a browser because the browser is designed to communicate with the Internet so it’d be the opposite of what I want…
To be honest I’d rather not use an App like a browser because the browser is designed to communicate with the Internet so it’d be the opposite of what I want… 