I never understood why so many like the ledger and with a recently added "features" it only confirms what I knew.

I wanted to talk about this long ago, but given how hardware wallet on this sub is just as big of a saint as few of the coins I didn't. Now finally some will understand my reasoning. Its' software is open source. But it's firmware is not (but it's been audited by "trustworthy" auditors just like those exchanges that don't exist anymore). It's a whole thing made privately by somebody somewhere. Not code you can read by yourself anytime you want. It breakes the fundamental rule of crypto: don't trust anyone. That is enough to convince me to not use it. There's also vendors' issues.

How do I safely store the crypto then? I use open source software to generate the address and then keep it somewhere safe. That's it. Free, easy, safe. Yes, you need to trust the device you use for crypto but if you don't, then don't use crypto. I try to avoid any layer when you use a service of a for profit company. Ordering hardware wallet is such a layer. There's a lot of privacy concern too but to simplify I skip those and focus only safety.

My reasoning is as simple as that. Companies exist to make money, not to make crypto epitome reality. I don't trust them. Sooner or later their greed will win against any advantage of using hardware wallet. It's not there yet. But why even risking that it might in the future? Using hardware wallet is one of those rules on this sub that I have always considered dumb. It's not a terrible option. But if there are better options why not to go with them? Maybe I missed something. If you think using hardware wallet is safer or better than the option I wrote about, can you say why?