Announcement:
http://www.sandboxie.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=11658
Register: (you must click link at the top named "Click to buy!")
http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?RegisterSandboxie
(50% off puts it at $21 / €14.50, and note that the personal lifetime license permits you to use Sandboxie on any number of computers that you personally own and covers the current version and all future versions of Sandboxie. )
Testimonials:
http://www.sandboxie.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=6
It's good stuff and I think any computer that can run it shouldn't be without it, if a PC is powerful enough to run Windows 2000 or later OS then it can run Sandboxie with no problem. Sandboxie is no more strenuous than any other basic background service in Windows, when you understand what Sandboxie does and how it works this result is understandable and intuitive. Even so, so much power for so little overhead is astonishing and represents everything that software could and should be. Even if used rarely it's so light on system resources that it almost doesn't seem to exist on a system, it's also intensely configurable. It's useful for many reasons (I've used it more for testing software than for anything else) and nearly all of it's deepest features are available in the free/unregistered version. To use it you just right-click on something and select "Run Sandboxed".
Nothing you do in a sandbox touches your operating system, all registry and disk activity is directed to a sandboxed folder, so that when you are done installing and testing something (or browsing and getting infected with malware or toolbars or whatever) you can delete the folder and all traces will be gone from your system. For example, if something tries to write to the Windows folder it does so in a fake windows folder sitting within your sandbox folder, and writes registry changes to a virtual registry on a per-sandbox basis. Removing the effects of intrusive software or malware is really as simple as deleting a folder!
The beauty is that it's not a virtual machine, all it does it redirect registry and file system activity, so that most things generally run just as well sandboxed as not. You can make sandboxes temporary or permanent depending on your needs, and having multiple sandboxes with different configurations is very handy. If you run an existing program sandboxed it simply imports the current state and setup of that program and proceeds from there, the results of which can be kept in the sandbox henceforth or deleted at the end of your session. If you forbid a sandbox network access it also serves as a perfect firewall against the software running in it (again, great for testing), and it's basic control window functions as a simple task manager so that you see everything running under it's control.
Since pointing an unrestricted web browser at the internet is so dangerous these days I think most people would do well to keep their browsing sandboxed, or set up multiple sandboxes for various online and offline tasks. Sandboxes are little more than folders with specific Sandboxie rules applied to them.
I highly recommend setting up Sandboxie for friends and family who are ignorant of technical stuff, to protect their systems and make fixing their problems a breeze. However, the problem with Sandboxie is that it requires some steady use to be able to train it to perform all that it needs to on a particular system, and one must learn how to 'recover' things from the sandbox to the real system (like saved items and downloads), which could make it a bit of work to set up for others or to train them to use it.
Sandboxie's all about preventing changes to your system, but it must be said that Sandboxie doesn't stop anything from running unless you tell it to (and the various access restrictions are highly configurable), it's nature is to let something run and think it has control of your system, but you are in control, totally.
