Sandboxie acquired by invincea: what it means

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 26, 2013
Updated • Aug 21, 2018
Security
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22

The sandboxing solution Sandboxie is a gem, I cannot describe it in any other way. It allows you to run any program on your Windows system in a sandbox, so that its interaction with the underlying operating system is limited.

While there are still possibilities to let changes pass through, it is entirely up to the user when that happens and when it is prevented.

While labeled shareware, it is possible to run the trial version of the program for as long as you want. You do get reminders that this is a trial, but that is about it in terms of limitations.

If you have been to the Sandboxie website recently, you may have noticed the acquisition notice on its frontpage. It states that Sandboxie has been acquired by Invincea.

Update: Invincea was acquired by Sophos in 2017. The sale did not impact the operation of Sandboxie in any way until now.

Invincea is a venture-backed security company from the United States that is providing Enterprise customers and small businesses with tools and support to protect systems against advanced cyber attacks. Most notably, a partnership with Dell was announced in July 2013. Dell's "Data Protection | Protected Workspace" endpoint security solution ships with all commercial Dell tablets and PC's worldwide as part of the company's "Most Secure" line of machines. This solution is powered by Invincea.

The Sandboxie acquisition on the other hand may come as a surprise to users of the security software. The announcement confirms that the acquisition was made to consolidate Sandboxie and Invincea's own solution.

Not only does it pave the way to the end user and small business market for the company, it may also make available Enterprise solutions to Sandboxie customers.

Adding Sandboxie to Invincea’s portfolio was a strategic move to expand our business globally, to address the small and individual market, and provide a pathway for Sandboxie fans to an enterprise ready solution

Probably the most important information of the announcement is the fact that Sandboxie will remain free, and that nothing will change for existing customers. This means, and is confirmed by Ronen Tzur, that lifetime license owners will keep their license. In essence, all previous licenses are honored by the new owners of Sandboxie.

What this also means is that Ronen will leave the project for good at the end of January 2014. It is not clear how this will impact the future of the application, but Ronen appears to be belief that this is a good move for the software and its future.

It is definitely too early to tell where the journey will go. Besides keeping the current business model, it is also important that development continues. At best, it is accelerated and improved thanks to the company's development resources. At worst, it dies a slow death.

Only time will tell, but I do hope that Sandboxie will continue to be a program that I can recommend.

Summary
Sandboxie acquired by invincea: what it means
Article Name
Sandboxie acquired by invincea: what it means
Description
The sandboxing solution Sandboxie for Microsoft Windows devices was acquired by security company Invincea in 2014.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. moa said on October 12, 2019 at 2:05 pm
    Reply

    sandboxie has no equivalent! It is a scandal to sacrifice him in this way! Ronen Tzur may have pockets full of money, but by that sale he contributed to the announced murder of his baby! I am disgusted! and I hope he too!

    Maybe someone knows an aletrnative software?

  2. Shawn said on May 4, 2019 at 12:51 pm
    Reply

    No extra clarification yet.. and it annoys me as the 5.30 was updated real fast as for their forum bug it’s really weird and what really sucks is that the Contributed tools are all gone now.

    https://www.sandboxie.com/ContributedUtilities as no more forum links

  3. Matt said on April 25, 2019 at 1:17 am
    Reply

    @ Martin

    > do you have a link to verify that?

    Assuming Sandboxie is considered to be a Invincea (related) product:

    https://www.sophos.com/en-us/lp/invincea.aspx

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on April 25, 2019 at 6:31 am
      Reply

      Thank you, I contacted them for clarification.

  4. Greg said on April 18, 2019 at 6:43 pm
    Reply

    I believe that Sophos has discontinued the sale of Sandboxie and all produce support will end in December 2019. What about Lifetime licence holders?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on April 18, 2019 at 7:42 pm
      Reply

      Hi, do you have a link to verify that? I just checked the Sandboxie website and it is still possible to buy it (there is a buy link).

  5. Al said on September 17, 2014 at 8:57 pm
    Reply

    David, NO not in Appdata (or any OS “associated” folder) thats the point, its partitions interaction with the OS (whats inside the “sandbox” thinks/is convinced/conned it is interacting in the OS) but you are right install a load crap in a folder and when you chose automatically or manually make it VANISH. This folder in called ‘Sandbox’ located at the ROOT of the current OS DRIVE,

    Like people say you could set up a virtual machine to do a similar thing except it would interact with the virtual OS which is theoretically (unless changed by choice linking to the REAL PC) contained from the REAL PC.

  6. David said on March 20, 2014 at 12:10 am
    Reply

    So, with Sandboxie I can install a whole load of crap, then just clear it and everything is as it was? That’s awesome. Does it keep all the installed stuff in \Appdata?

    Does anyone have experience with a good portable version of Sandboxie?

  7. Olaf said on January 20, 2014 at 1:49 pm
    Reply

    Hi

    Sandboxie IS great. Hopefully it will survive. Maybe an alternative for some users:
    http://www.toolwiz.com/products/toolwiz-time-freeze/

    Olaf

  8. Thomas Ruth said on December 31, 2013 at 2:35 am
    Reply

    I think this is a great deal for the author (Ronen). IIRC Sandboxie was started as a pet project and he’s making good $$ (hopefully) and this technology is almost 10 years old now. He should go for other more important things now. Looks like this new company (Invincea) was funded by DARPA, LOL now they’ll sell this to the US govt!!! I’m sure they’ll keep it free and data mine your activity and use it for publicity.
    BEWARE: Nothing is free (unless it was one guy a.k.a Ronen running the show all these years). These guys paid $$ for buying Sandboxie and they’ll do everything to get it. This whole episode is amusing and shows how broken the security industry is and and old stuff just keeps getting recycled in different covers.

    1. Nick said on January 6, 2014 at 2:10 am
      Reply

      Your right! For those that use Sandboxie, this is the end of that software.

      But here’s some new info that you might not have known. One of the moderators at Wilders Security Forum is a frequent contributors to the Sandboxie Forum, his location is Washington DC. Invincea is right around the corner so to speak in Fairfax, VA. Talk about a big conflict of interest.

      Out of curiosity, I look up some others just to reconfirm my eyes. And yes, some of the other moderators are heavy contributors to other security software forums. I would not trust Wilders Security Forum anymore as a credible site for info.

  9. Brightspark said on December 27, 2013 at 10:30 pm
    Reply

    I have very little doubt that the abolition of lifetime Sandboxie licenses was a direct result of Invincea’s impending acquisition. The timing is right and it’s just the sort of decision a corporation would make.

    Sandboxie is a mature program and its methodology such that it doesn’t demand any heavy investment in ongoing development so there is no real basis for enforcing annual fees… other than financial gain.

    As far as Sandboxie remaining free; I have serious concerns this will not happen. Corporations are profit driven, Sandboxie’s (free) userbase currently numbers in the hundreds of thousands – it’s simply a matter of taking the scenario to its logical conclusion.

  10. observer said on December 27, 2013 at 8:19 am
    Reply

    don’t you think that it is the next one in long line of nice free safety+privacy tools taken by spying corporations : WOT , VirusTotal , Ghostery ,Peerblock( updates not every day but only once in a week )…
    and maybe in gradual way Opera , Firefox(Australochrome) – signs of NWO approaching…

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on December 27, 2013 at 8:30 am
      Reply

      I do not think that Firefox is done. While I don’t agree with some of the decisions that Mozilla made lately, in regards to looks and customization options, I believe that the browser is still the go-to browser for users who want to “hack” it and make it their own.

      An acquisition does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. In this case, the company stated that everything will remain as is, more or less. I’d give them the benefit of the doubt right now, and see how it goes.

      1. observer said on December 29, 2013 at 6:45 am
        Reply

        Mozilla was bribed by Google to play “good cop”
        If Mozilla was so free & open it wouldn’t enforce spying corporation Akamai as the only way to download addons

  11. Mountainking said on December 27, 2013 at 5:49 am
    Reply

    I think it makes sense not to have a ‘lifetime’ license. As long as I hate it as a user to continually fork out money, it is legitimate to have a new license for MAJOR revisions of softwares and as another user pointed out, not by time limit.

    An example of such software would be DOPUS.

  12. Zeus said on December 26, 2013 at 10:01 pm
    Reply

    “The lifetime/perpetual license
    has been discontinued.”

    This is getting disgusting.

    One-year licenses are no better than paid-for games riddled with In-App Purchases. But while all but the most casual of gamers have begun to fight back against “paying” for games that are little more than glorified storefronts, users of business software and other utilities seem all too happy with the One-year License.

    It’s one thing to release the occasional major overhaul that requires a new license. It’s quite another to sit on your butt for a year and demand people fork over another $15-25 for no better reason than it’s been 365 days since the *last* time they had to pay.

    One-year licenses are a disturbing trend. It’s getting to be hard to find a program that even offers a lifetime license anymore. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is one. There aren’t many others.

    What I hate most about this is, AFAIK, there was no warning, no window of opportunity to snatch up Sandboxie lifetime licenses before it was too late. It’s just, surprise! That’s no longer an option! Hope you like forking over $20 a year! My hat is made of money!

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on December 26, 2013 at 10:58 pm
      Reply

      The lifetime licenses had been discontinued long before the acquisition if I recall correctly.

      1. imu said on December 27, 2013 at 12:17 am
        Reply

        Not that long before cos two months ago to be precise and my bet is Tzuk new at that time his going to sell it or even cutting lifetime license was one of conditions to make this transaction to happen.

        “Sandboxie fans have no need to be concerned by its new ownership. You’ve been running under the Invincea umbrella for some time now and we have been working with Sandboxie Founder, Ronen Tzur, to ensure a smooth transition to new ownership. ”
        src:http://www.invincea.com/2013/12/invinceas-expanding-global-community/

        I do have lifetime license and I can hear what the new owner promises but I am kind of worried anyway :( only time can tell so will see.

      2. Zeus said on December 26, 2013 at 11:15 pm
        Reply

        Ah, I hadn’t realized. Thanks for the correction!

    2. Zeus said on December 26, 2013 at 10:09 pm
      Reply

      For the record, I have no problem with paying for software. I’m happy to renew my MediaMonkey license, because they only ask me to do so after a major milestone rather than some arbitrary time limit.

  13. Sev said on December 26, 2013 at 8:45 pm
    Reply

    OMG NO!!!!
    Sandboxie is my MOST USED app. This is a dark day in the history of the Internet.

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