Last decade recollection- Next decade predictions

[Abaddon]

Hello everyone.
With a new decade ante portas, i think an assessment of the previous decade and some predictions for the next decade might be an interesting and fun topic.

So...

1. What do you think was the most interesting/challenging type of software protection of the past decade? Where do you think the future of software protections lies?

2. What would you characterize as "tool of the decade"? If you were to name 5 tools that influenced the scene more, which would those be? Where do you think the future lies as far as tools go?

3. Which release do you consider to be the biggest breakthrough for the last decade, and for what reason? In other words what release came to shake still waters, and was a (pleasant) surprise (to all except the developers)?

Wishing you all the best in 2020!