Power Shadow

Well, my feeling is that while I am very impressed with PowerShadow, the fact that there is very limited contact with the vendor, who at it stands now is some unknown entity in China (not saying that is inherently bad, just a big unknown), I have less of a comfortable feeling about the software than if it was some company that was easily contactable, where the website gave a good deal of information in English as to the program, how it works etc.

Granted, SONY, a very large company, installed their own rootkit , but these folks are a real big unknown...

Just my 2 cents...

Thanks all,
M.

 

Someplace in this thread, I think, somebody found that the company is registered in Beijing. Don't know any more than that except that Powershadow works, and no one has found any problems with it.

The site doesn't give a lot of info in English. I wish I could read Chinese, since I'm sure there's a lot to be learned from reading their forum. I tend to believe more what people are saying about a product than what the company posts.

 

well there are a number of members who are from china here at wilders. hopefully one of them might end up in this thread and ask a few questions on the powershadow chinese forum for us.
I havent as yet received a reply from my email to their support as yet, however that may be due to their support not speaking english. They may have had the english version translated by an independant company hence the request for $39. The translation is really well done and simple to understand. The whole presentation of powershadow is great. It just flows.

 

Good idea, solarpowered candle. I've been skimming through the antivirus section, about Rising and other Chinese antiviruses (meaning I'm avoiding work) and found a number of Chinese posters. Hopefully one of them will discover this thread eventually.

 

if we could sort out one or two questions that are really to the point it would be helpful also.As it may be easier for a chinese member then to post it. I have to make contact with chinese ( manderine speaking ) people once or twice a month through my work so I could pass the question on to them to do this But need to keep it real simple and to the point as they may not necesarily be into this sort of computer awareness or use. However having someone from here who speaks manderine ( i guess the forum is in manderine) to do this would be a lot easier as those who i do contact often struggle a little with some aspects of english.

 

@ Rivalen
You can also type PowerShadow with a space between words like this Power Shadow, I think this solves the problem with the registration error

 

I like to know if there will be a English sub-forum for PS.

Ensurebit Software Inc.

Ensurebit Software Inc. (ESI) delivers powerful, easy to use software applications for customers all over the world. Though the company is relatively young, we have built a R&D team with high expertise, rich experience and excellent skill, also has attracted a group of market and project elites to join us. With the aspiring team spirit, ESI has been growing steadily and quickly. Therefore, we take pride in providing a high level of consistent, reliable customer service, support and exceptional products.At ESI, we take partnership seriously, we are committed to enhancing the productivity and profitability of our user's businesses. We are ready to work with you to ensure the win-win situation for business collaboration of any kind.

- FunWebcam, playwebcam.com

 

I have been reading through ten pages of this thread waiting to see if anybody was going to ask such a question. This is completely legitimate question and very important thing. Nowadays that we are witnessing progressive dying of personal freedoms and privacy even in western "liberal democracies" (Patriot Act in USA, German police capturing en masse people running Tor servers, German government imposing a backdoor on JAP etc.) it is absolutely justified to ask yourself if you can trust such a powerful software coming from China. As you probably know, internet access is restricted to Chinese citizens. Google and Yahoo had to comply with Chinese laws if they wanted to be present on Chinese market (a Chinese journalist is facing possible death penalty due to Yahoo's extradition to Chinese government of his emails he had sent out of China ).

I simply doubt that Chinese government who want to control everything would allow their people to have a program that would allow them such a high degree of privacy.

 

Too late to cast doubts on Power Shadow. Doesn't matter if it was created in China or Tim Buk Two, this program lives up entirely to what it claims and thats the bottom line.

If not, this Topic would have easily faded away but in contrast, those who are giving it a whirl are finding a very effective shadowing sandbox app that plays friendly with every security program they already use plus quietly runs as expected without issue.

I think some users falsely fall into a trap of thinking just because a program originates in another language/nation, that the creation is subject to issues. And that may be in some cases but certainly not this one. Read the reviews right here for yourself and then if your curiosity presses you that much, take a plunge for yourself.

Leave the politics out of it and instead look at the modern innovation of it that's being offered. After all, they could very well have kept it native or moreover, kept it contained from the internet altogether.

The privacy issue doesn't really hold much water in this world anymore anyway since the introduction of this new international medium called the internet has removed those walls.

 

I think that anonymity is precisely why power shadow was developed & why it is free to Chinese citizens. What you have on your computer can be used against you in almost all countries. Depending on the laws everyone might be suspect sometimes. The fact that this program is being touted as a solution for malware probably keeps the developer from being instantly arrested. I would doubt that the Chinese will allow this program to exist very long. There are a few programs that try to wipe out online data available in the USA but none will do it as well as this one. If you have one of those programs on your computer you probably can expect that you will be under suspicion if law enforcement ever looks over your data. I can only imagine what Law Enforcement will say when they find out that thieves etc can wipe out all their computer activities with this free program. As far as I am concerned Anonymity is NOT a crime. One can only imagine if one combines this program with a virtual server such as virtual box or VMWare protected by a firewall & router what activities could occurr. Could they ever be traced if a Proxy was used? Even if they could be what tracks would be left behind when you rebooted? I think the possibility for abuse is huge!

 

Easter,

I think you may be missing my point when you say:

"I think some users falsely fall into a trap of thinking just because a program originates in another language/nation, that the creation is subject to issues"

I could care less if it came from China, Israel, Turkey or Iran for that matter - my point was that there is basically no information available about the company, it's "mission", the way software does what it does, the team who built it, etc.

Nobody is questioning that it can do what it claims, only with the lack of other info, it is what else it could possibly be doing that is a concern.

Mark.

 

Powershadow is being used in schools in China, so I'm sure the Govt knows about it. Whether they know exactly what it can do, who knows. Maybe China isn't as sealed off from the rest of the world as other Govt's would like us to believe.

As for being used in some abusive (illegal?) manner, no doubt, as could shadowuser/surfer, VMware, DeepFreeze, and the other virtual/sandbox type programs. Powershadow compares, in my opinion, to shadowuser only, as was said, does it better.

I find it a miracle that both haven't been declared illegal here under the Patriot Act, except that I don't see how they can stop people from downloading it from foreign servers. They (Govt) can make anything illegal, but the joy of the Internet is that if people people on the 'net don't like a law, they ignore it. It has to gall Govt's that the Internet even exists. The Internet is freedom and free speech. Governments all over the world hate both. Outlaw something in one country, those who want it go to another via the net and get it.

 

Yeah well ok, all that is topic for another discussion. Let's stay on topic here if possible.

The basic purpose for this discussion as i believe the author intended was to bring attention to an alternative sandbox that not only is issue free but doesn't give rise to problems similar to that what others have had to put up with.

ShadowSurfer/User comes to mind. Bufferzone, GreenBorder, Sandboxie, etc. they all have their respective places in sandboxing but the underlying question AND curiosity of most is just how effective is Power Shadow in comparison.

Well for my end there is no equal, at least none i'm aware of presently. I conduct daily and ongoing research into the dangers of malicious files/programs that are deliberately fashioned to do the utmost damage to an otherwise normal operating system, specifically Windows. Not so much damage per say but unauthorized disruption of people's services called the internet that they pay good money to have at their ready anytime day and night.

Just one intrusion or only a single unrequested forced entry into these PC machines and an entire (single) computer can be at risk to being fashioned as a zombie in order to distribute anything determined on it that can fan out over the rest of a network, not to mention gravely limiting the performance and operation for which it was intended of in the first place.

Power Shadow serves multiple purposes. In my case, it saves enormous frustration from having to track down those malicious entries and pick out their settings which can measure in the tens of dozens if not more. For example registry entries that are tied to drivers/services which can interupt normal usage.

A program like Power Shadow saves a user the heartache and disappointment of having to hunt thru the entire makeup of the windows tree in order to remove entries that serve no useful purpose whatsoever for the end user.

It's extremely comforting to test new programs that might not be coded as well as you might expect and instead of leaving setings behind to gum up and in some cases cause slow downs from the usual performance enjoyed before, this program affords a user a test bed whereby after examining matters they can decide if it is trustworthy and reliable or if not, you can rest assured nothing on your computer is been either compromised or disrupted permanantly.

 

The info might be there in Chinese. I don't know. I know attempts to contact the company have failed, but it is a registered company in Beijing, so it does exist.

As for how it works, seems to be a virtual rather than sandbox type of environment, similar to Shadowuser only better. Whoever the team that developed it are, they're good. As for it doing anything else, my firewall shows nothing in the logs. I have PS blocked just in case. My computer runs great, no strange anythings happening.

 

The Patriot act allows many things. but one of the things it probably does not allow is declaring software illegal. I think you would need a specific law doing this & then where would you stop? As for its malware removal capabilities & software testing capabilities Power Shadow is awesome. I personally believe that the Patriot Act is knee jerk patriotism & will be slowly phased out. Exactly what did it accomplish anyway? Law enforcement could do most of things the Patriot Act codifies anyway with the proper w rents anyway. The President always did have power to pursue bad guys with unmitigated power. I never understood why we needed it. At any rate I am glad we have a Program like Power Shadow.It will be interesting to see the reaction of law enforcement when they finally find out about it. Probably the same as the Chinese.

 

For me, Easter, Power Shadow just saves time when I go on one of my penchants for downloading and trying out stuff. Like you said, the programs don't uninstall everything and I was reformatting every year or so. No more need to do that now. And, if I pick up something from a supposedly safe download, or from a presumed safe site, it can run crazy in a virtual environment thinking it's wrecking my computer. When I'm tired of watching it, I hit reboot or manually reboot and it's dead.

 

Interesting that Ensurebit software located & registered in Beijing China has over 30000 different programs available. The most prominent being " Fun WebCam" Also Wondershare & some video & photography Programs. There is a separate site for PowerShadow. Its almost like Ensurebit software is a distributor type company marketing Power Shadow> . Exactly what this means I don't know.

 

Didn't know about any of the other programs. I've never checked. From the number of programs, it sounds as if they're a reseller/distributor rather than the builder. Whoever makes Power Shadow, some companies here could sure learn from them.

 

well it could make a lot of security software redundant. possibly wouldnt go down too well.

 

Very true, solar. It's made most other stuff redundant - and non existent - on my computer. I've taken off everything but ccleaner, AVG antispyware, an antivirus, and firewall. My av and AVG AS have a very easy job these days. I suspect they feel as if they're in retirement for all the work they have to do, and I still run them, weekly now rather than daily. Ccleaner too doesn't have much work to do.

 

Hi, folks: The following are for your info only.
I found a forum discussing Power Shadow (all in Chinese). First Let me recap few things. This company is a registered software development identity, 100% legal, no hidden agenda. Its chief engineer had a lengthy interview w/ one of leading IT magazines, in it, he mentioned PS has been available in US since May,2005, and has over 20,000 copies sold, he decided to introduce it in China in Dec.2006, and free for all non-commercial users. That interview was made on 2006-11-27. Apparently, PS did have a forum and have since closed for an unknown reason. On the forum which I unearthed, there are 380 postings between 2006-12-11 and 2007-2-5. 99% of them are positive ones, very similair to what we have seen on Wilders. Common prombles are registration related. None has mentioned about phoning home issue. In general, PS has been favorably accepted in China. Some users even joked about the future of AV,AT and AS apps. They agree that the dependance on those apps has gradually faded. I can communicate in Chinese, but my PC's keyboard is not equipped w/ Chinese characters and am not trained how to use them.

BTW, for Ktango, I received your PM, I will look at the link to see whether I can translate it for you in the morning.

 

So, I take it no problems with Power Shadow not doing its job. And, they're right about the future of anti/virus/trojan/spyware if this little treasure becomes really well known. Like me:turn on the computer in morning, get antivirus and spyware update, go into shadow mode, do surfing or forum posting. Then reboot, and do my writing for a couple of hours. Then, back in Shadow mode until I shut down.

When my browser is up, I'm in shadow mode. It just makes good sense, even with very safe surfing habits.

 

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I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

Thank you very much, My english is not good enough to translate this thread correctly. It should be useful for all Power Shadow users.

 

Thank You to all these members for participating in this very unique topic and especially it's author. It's very rare indeed that a topic such as this draws as much interest as it has but it's also been a very timely one as well as an important subject which is been greatly needed at a time when security takes on so much interest for PC safety then ever before.

I hope everyone can and will benefit from these discussions that have been brought to the surface and that you will discover how important it is to examine for yourselves what it means to keep your computer completely safe like this program can offer us.