The software developer is providing access to a free version of Sandboxie on his website which has a few limitations compared to the commercial version.

As the name suggests Sandboxie makes use of the concept of so called sandboxes (also called virtual environments by some). The main advantage of running applications in a sandbox is that everything that happens in there stays in there. If you land on a website that uses a 0-day browser exploit to download and launch malicious code on your computer you can rest assured that the rest of the system – that is the part outside of the sandbox – will not be affected by the virus. And the sandbox itself can simply be cleared so that the malicious software has no means of affecting the computer system.

To make it even more visual: Sandboxie acts as a border that is impenetrable for applications that get started inside. Many of these applications usually interact with other system components, say a web browser that is storing cache on the hard drive or storing new bookmarks on the computer. Every attempt to interact with the computer system will be intercepted by Sandboxie and emulated so that the application “thinks” that everything is ok.

These changes on the other hand are not permanently and once the application or the sandbox have been terminated they are gone. But don’t worry: Sandboxie is still providing the means to save data that has been created or downloaded into the sandbox. Think of a document that you are downloading from a website, you might want to keep it even after the browser session closes.

It is possible to configure resource access rights for files running in the sandbox. These are left blank on purpose by default but it would be possible to allow the web browser Firefox to access its bookmarks file directly so that bookmarks get stored permanently. (There is an option in Sandboxie’s settings that allows direct access to the bookmarks of Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer and another setting for email clients.

The installation runs through without problems or user interaction. The system is ready to run applications in the sandbox right after installation. Sandboxie integrates itself in the right-click context menu (Run Sandboxed) and it is also possible to drag and drop applications into the program interface to run them sandboxed.

The control interface is listing the programs that are running in the sandbox. This is helpful because there is virtually no way of telling if it is running in a Sandbox by looking at the program window.

The commercial version of Sandboxie introduces several interesting and helpful features. It makes it possible to run multiple sandboxes on a computer system. This can be useful to launch set of tools in different sandboxes which is great to isolate programs further.

The Forced Folders and Forced Programs options become available after registration.

Forced Folders:

This options allows you to select folders (this can also be a drive letter) and force all applications starting from there to run in sandboxed mode. Some useful applications for this are CD / DVD drives or a downloads folder for Internet downloads.

Forced Programs:

Allows the user to select files that should always be run in sandboxed mode. This is very useful to make sure that an application is always running in the sandbox without having to launch it that way at every program start.

The developer of Sandboxie was nice enough to give us six licenses of his security software program. You should know the drill by know. Just leave a comment letting us know what you think / like about the program and you are eligible to win a copy of it.

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Although the promotion is only running today users who download the virtualization software have seven days to install it and are still eligible to use it freely. The registration key will be send to the email address entered during registration and is good for one year of free updates.

Zonealarm Forcefield is compatible to Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 as well as Mozilla Firefox 2 and Firefox 3. No Opera support in sight unfortunately though.

ZoneAlarm Forcefield adds a toolbar to the browser which thankfully can be shortened so that the icons only appear in the statubs bar and are thus less obtrusive.

Features:

• Browser Threat Immunity
• Keylogger & Screengrabber Jamming
• Anti-Phishing
• Spy Site Blocking
• On-The-Fly Encryption
• Website Safety Check

Unlike the other two virtualization software programs ZoneAlarm Forcefield virtualises only the browser and not other applications that connect to the Internet.

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Sandboxie steps between the application and the system and allows only reads from the system itself but no writes. Writes are only allowed in the sandbox. This is great if you want to run applications without having to worry about system safety at all. It is still a good idea to be careful as usually when working with Sandboxie. If something bad slips through it is intercepted by Sandboxie.

It is a good idea to run applications that are used to attack computers with malware, spyware and viruses inside the sandbox to avoid that they reach your operating system. What can I say, it is a nice uncomplicated way to add an additional level of security to your system.

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