I’m interested in hardware, apps, formats and services that will be resilient and long-lasting. I’m old enough to have been burned by some industry shifts, standards changes, cancelled projects, discontinued formats, etc.
For example, if someone had jumped many years ago into Debian on x86 and committed to Emacs/orgmode (or Vim), email/PGP, XMPP with family and friends they could still be be using this setup.
What would you recommend as parts of a resilient and long-lasting setup oriented generally towards privacy and security? Feel free to mention whatever you want but I’m personally looking to avoid Micro$oft, Google and Apple ecosystems. (Exclude specific distro version numbers).
I’m not sure what to say about an acquisition/merge such as happened with Safing and IVPN. There is potential for continued stability with both platforms, I suppose. Sometimes, though, giants like Apple or Google acquire and kill services.
What hardware, apps, services do you think you could still be using in 10 years?
I’ve also been thinking about this recently. I think that if resilience is the priority then smartphones are immediately out of the picture, although Pixels are relatively long lasting: the Pixel 2 from 2017 still runs on the latest DivestOS which is pretty cool but still not as good as any random x86 machine.
A x86 computer, powerful enough to run VMs for compatibility with Android would be required since Waydroid is not considered secure, as well as a cellular modem for calls and text which are unfortunately pretty much a requirement in society. You can do this in a computer via ModemManager. Other than the main computer itself, it’s probably a good idea to have a secondary computer as a NAS to store all your stuff with RAID set up for redundancy, as well as a couple HDDs for a backup.
In terms of services I think that the only thing that is almost required to me is a VPN. Everything else can be replaced with local solutions, or used for free and with good privacy (and is replaceable if needed).
In terms of software, I believe that relying on android apps in general isn’t the best thing as android doesn’t really care too much about compatibility with older software. Yes it’s true that running unmaintained apps isn’t the best, but there is little possible harm if you use said app offline and in a sandbox.
It’s also preferable to avoid software that needs to be constantly updated in order to maintain functionality. Things like desktop extensions in GNOME and KDE for instance should probably be avoided, because these projects constantly break extensions and generally don’t care about maintaining compatibility.
I agree that XMPP is king for instant messaging, and with using traditional *nix software in general. Emacs, vim, zathura, cmus, mpv, etc.
Is there an x86 Android that’s still maintained and not on Android 11? (Just asking, because I actually really want to know) or is this going the emulation route?