Well, there is another safe option for flexible pointers if you can compile as C++ [1]. In C++ you can have non-owning "smart" pointers with run-time-checked lifetimes [2][3]. Importantly, there is no run-time overhead to dereference them. (That is for the "never-null" versions, otherwise there's a null check.) Assignment has additional run-time cost, but pointer assignments are generally much less prevalent in performance-sensitive inner loops than dereferences, right?

And you can statically verify [4] your raw pointers, so that you only need to use the run-time-checked pointers for the more exotic lifetime relationships.

(That said, for the situations where Fil-C acceptably solves your problem, it's probably the more practical, complete and well-supported solution. And since not many seem to be explicitly mentioning it, the recent Fil-C demonstration of memory-safe linux userspace is rather impressive, right? I've heard that IT security is a $100B industry. I'm guessing an inappropriately low proportion of those resources are being invested in Fil-C. :)

[1] https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTransla...

[2] https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#norad-point...

[3] https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#tnoradproxy...

[4] https://github.com/duneroadrunner/scpptool