I never liked the idea of devices designed with storing bitcoin as its sole purpose. I've seen some pretty dubious stuff like this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TREZOR/comments/6yti7p/trezor_bridge_trezordexe_calling_home/Why would stuff like this be necessary when you can bypass it with a solid linux airgapped laptop? sure it's not as convenient moving a laptop around, but you still a computer with those devices nonetheless.
Also beside the potential exploits, it's just a device that screams "there is money inside, please steal it"
Using an airgapped linux laptop with an encrypted hard drive is just as fine, IMO. Convenience and ease of use is a big factor though, especially as securing a linux system from attacks involving
physical access is not that trivial either.
In my opinion, the easier something can be securely used without messing things up, the better. The harder using something
securely becomes, the less hardware / software security starts to matter and the more of a liability the human factor becomes. And the human factor is a huge liability.
I guess in the end it's mostly a matter of personal philosophy and preference though.
I have not been inspired by Ledger's faintly derisive attitude to the people who chip away at their security. Trezor seem to have much more humility and openness. Though I prefer the way the Trezor operates anyway, I'd favour them over Ledger primarily because of their approach to this area.
I feel the same. The exploit used to circumvent Ledger's firmware check is not quite instilling confidence in their software security (contrasted to the 3 months of hardware glitching necessary for the Trezor exploit). That Ledger's security appears to partially depend on security through obscurity is also slightly worrying. In general they nonetheless appear to do good work though, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten off that easily.