SafeSpace Personal Edition

Hi all.

I'm pleased to announce the release of SafeSpace Personal Edition. This can be downloaded at http://www.artificialdynamics.com/content/products/register-personal.aspx

This is our first full release of the software, and includes a number of updates including:

• Extended application discovery
• Bettrer support of multiple user profiles
• Advanced diagnostics utility
• Anti-keylogger switch
• Global enable / disable switch
• Better tagged file management
• Support for 16-bit applications
• 'Welcome' tutorial
• Seperated Notification tray icon from main console
• Lots of optimizations and bug fixes
• 'New version' autochecker

The full list of changes can be viewed in the release notes once installed.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone in this community who tried the Beta versions and provided feedback on their evaluation. Your comments have been invaluable to us. Keep up the good work

As always, if you would like to provide feedback or raise a support case, please use the online form at http://www.artificialdynamics.com/content/support/overview.aspx. We will shortly be unveiling a forum with which to provide additional support.

SafeSpace is completely free for personal use, so give it a try today!

Best regards,

Kris.

Artificial Dynamics.

 

Thanks Tidyup

Haven't tried this since one of the beta versions - it looks impressive so time to give it another go.

 

Hi

Did try this before in beta.

Just d/loaded this version. It has a Block Keylogger tab which I enabled and ran the AKLT tests.

It failed tests 1,3,4 and 5 . Passed test 2

Am I missing something TidyUp ?

 

I would just caution anyone trying this to have a current backup plan.

I have just gone through a second attempted install of SafeSpace Personal and it is reproducibly generating a spontaneous restart near the end installation on the my machine, which persists in anything except safe mode. There are not any obviously conflicting applications on this machine.

Blue

 

The keylogger protection is on by default, highlighted by a padlock over the icon. Are you sure you didn't just switch it off? Also, is AKLT.exe running inside or outside of SafeSpace?

 

Hi

I notice it also has a keylogger tab in the Techincal Activity section which purports to log keystrokes stopped/allowed.

No activity logged at all after the AKLT tests

Look forward to Kris's comments.

 

Hi Kris

Yep, noticed the padlock. Tried it both ways just to make sure

Ah ok that could be it. Let me double check and I'll post back later.

Nice swift response there Kris.

 

Hi, Tidyup:

I really appreciate your kind invitation, however....
There are many virtualization/sandbox applications available including some freewares as well. IMO, those who will test your new product are probably folks who already use similar products. In your website, you have mentioned the difference between some products and yours, but lacking comparison involving popular ones, such as sandboxie, returnil, bufferzone etc. How different and better is yours ? Your reply will certainly enhance readers' interest in testing your product, otherwise, it could be just another me-too, or seeking rabbit-eye testing. I always ask this very same question when I see an application with similar nature and intention; I have done so with another German product a week ago, still awaiting its reply (he has been evading my sincere questioin). Take care, and await your reply of any sort.

 

Hi Perman

That is a very interesting question you have asked.

Agreed there are alternative products in this new market, but I don't think this forum is the best place for me to discuss their drawbacks. So rather than make direct comparisons, I would like to highlight a few key areas in SafeSpace:

1. The ability to download web content and save it to the native file system, i.e. you don’t lose everything when the virtual environment is purged. You can save to standard places, such as My Documents and Desktop, and SafeSpace will protect any private content in these directories. SafeSpace content is automatically tracked and re-opened within SafeSpace. SafeSpace protection can easily be added or removed from any file using the context menu in explorer.
2. Extensive virtualization, which ensures complete application isolation (see note below)
   • Kernel mode – file system, registry, IPC​
   • User mode - windows messaging, DDE, COM/RPC​
3. Extremely flexible privacy settings, with a default configuration that should meet the needs of most users. Advanced users can choose to virtualize different areas of the system (by default, windows and program files), or restrict/relax access to private files (by default, no private files can be read from data directories, other than content saved directly from within SafeSpace).
   
4. Generic blocking of numerous keylogging techniques, ensures that even if your sandbox is contaminated, no virtualized processes can log keystrokes.

Note:
In particular, DDE and COM virtualization ensures that content in SafeSpace is never hosted in the same process as native content. Applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat Reader will either share the same process instance or not work, unless DDE is fully virtualized. COM virtualization ensures that embedded content will function correctly and more importantly stays within SafeSpace (without COM virtualization applications can break or worse still launch other processes outside of the sandboxed environment). The extensive virtualization layer ensures SafeSpace can virtualize many applications, including those that usually only run a single process instance, such as task manager and explorer.

We also have a user guide which explains the key concepts of SafeSpace:

http://www.artificialdynamics.com/assets/pdf/Artificial Dynamics SafeSpace User Guide.pdf

Regards,

Kris.

 

Kris

I have a problem.

Just rebooted with SafeSpace installed and I can no longer access any dektop program

I get the Windows message along the lines of ''cannot find file specified - inadequate permissions etc''

Also I cannot right click menu on icons in sys tray.

Computer will not come out of standy. Need to force shutdown.

SafeSpace is certainly not liking something on my machine

 

Hi Kris, I'm facing problems aswell. It's failing to install on my system.

Edit got it installed now, after disabling Threatfire.

 

Hi, Kris:

Very much appreciated your speedy reply, with this in mind, I believe members here will be feeling more comfortable to try out your product, you are responsive to our concern; to act and react to any request. I shall give a good spin, although I am very happy with DeepFreeze. I wish your smooth sailing. Take care.

 

Hi Kris

I am not sure whether a previous post was resolved (about Safespace failing the keylogger tests).

1) Does it pass the AKLT tests?

2) Is SafeSpace still incompatible with KeyScrambler (or vice versa)?

3) I see the 30mb downlload has been reduced to 10mb or so. Does SafeSpace still need the .NET Framework?

Thanks

Terry

 

Hi Terry

I'll let Kris answer as well but for me it now does. I had to add AKLT to the protected items

I wrongly assumed that as Opera was protected then by default so would Opera d/loads.

 

1) Does it pass the AKLT tests?

Yes.

2) Is SafeSpace still incompatible with KeyScrambler (or vice versa)?

SafeSpace requires an object exclusion to be added to SafeSpace to allow KeyScrambler to run. I will post these details on our forum once it has been launched, but for now, please PM me if you use KeyScrambler.

3) I see the 30mb downlload has been reduced to 10mb or so. Does SafeSpace still need the .NET Framework?

Yes. But only on XP - Vista already has it installed.


Regarding Opera, any downloads which are saved to a private area (IE, My Documents, Desktop will be tagged automatically, irrelevant of which virtualized application introduced them.

 

Jeez, I like this product better than other sandbox software (yes inculding sandboxie ) Just a better feeling about the interface and stuff, but it doesnt like my current setup (or vice versa)
Before I had problem with Firefox crashing under certain (common) circumstances and now when I install this new version Firefox wont load at all inside Safespace. I havent seen anyone else complain about the problems I have so it is without any doubt something in my system.

But as soon as I get the time (all my spare time goes to learn ubuntu) to install windows from scratch I will try it again.

 

Hi Kris

Which version of .NET Framework is needed 1.1 or 2.0, or doesn't it matter?

 

Note that it is 2.0

 

The scroll button on the touchpad (on my laptop) does not work under safespaced browser. Is there anyway to resolve this?

 

Ok, so after some help from Tidyup I got Safespace running. Nothing wrong with my system, just me having problems to get the idea behind Safespace, I complicate things sometimes (I have firefox installed on another partition and SS treats that as a private space.)

I have tried to provoke Firefox to crash as it did before, but so far so good.
I am not sure I need a sandbox application really since I run a Limited user account, it might be my imagination but Firefox feels much more responsive (page loading) inside the box.

 

Ran this against AKLT it passes all except it fails GetKeyboardState

 

The issue I've seen above has apparently been traced to a conflict with a driver associated with Dr Web AV-Desk (beta).

Blue

 

This is a known issue, and should be resolved in the next patch release.

 

Yes, you are right yankinNcrankin. This is a new addition to AKLT. I will get a fix through to block this asap.

 

Tried it on 2 computers except when I selected purge both computers had a BSOD. I had to disable all safespace services and startups, use ATI to restore the MBR and then restore the image I created before I installed safespace.

Think I'll pass for now.