Sandboxie technical tests and other technical topics discussion thread

I wouldn't say Sandboxie is becoming more and more useless, though I understand your concern. My personal concern is that it is becoming more and more difficult to apply Sandboxie seamlessly throughout the entire system and this is only going to get worse, though this isn't Sandboxie's / Invincea's fault. It's actually hard to put the blame on anyone here, so I won't do it. Sadly, most alternatives are unattractive. That's all I have to say.

 

Thank you for your opinions.

 

FWIW, I tried Firefox Nightly 37.0a1 last night in XP. It worked fine with no apparent conflicts between Sandboxie and the limited sandboxing that has been implemented so far. Three of my four extension worked fine. I am going to try it today in W7.

CWS, don't forget, when you run your browser under Sandboxie, the whole browsing session runs under Sandboxies protection, that means, your system remains intact from changes done by programs that run in the same sandbox where you run the browser. If you click Install to malware while browsing sandboxed, the malware installs sandboxed. I don't believe you can get that kind of protection from any of the major browsers own sandbox.

Bo

 

I'm not sure why you're so fascinated with this subject. If you think that the sandboxes from Chrome, IE and in the future Firefox are good enough then don't run them sandboxed, but personally I'd rather rely on SBIE. I especially like the virtualization feature, that is something that browser sandboxes don't offer. Of course I do worry about possible conflicts between SBIE and browsers using their own sandboxing methods. Luckily my main browser is Opera 12.

 

I have tried everything but Flash refuses to install correctly, I'm not sure who to blame, Mozilla, Adobe or SBIE, but it sickens me. I will now have to install Firefox outside the sandbox, or can I perhaps copy the Firefox folders to the "real system"?

 

What can I say, I'm literally hyper-obsessed with this subject, my sincere apologies, and thank you for your opinions, again thank you very much, because I was actually scared people will get angry on me because of my irritation ability/ability to irritate all other people and because of that they will ignore me, from Bo, you, Yuki, Peter, actually, everybody on these forums.

 

Thank you for your answers, and I do agree with, yes I do use sandboxed Google Chrome, but for vast majority of time I use sandboxed Mozilla Firefox, however, I'm also very much dissapointed the way Mozilla Firefox is heading to-sandboxing, this is why I truly hope there would be options to turn on and to turn off Mozilla Firefox's sandbox protection.

 

Again, Bo, thank you for your answers, time and patience.

 

Rasheed, if you create a new sandbox and leave default settings in place, Flash as well as Firefox should install sandboxed. Create the new sandbox, run both installers by right clicking them and choose to run sandboxed in the same sandbox, afterward, Firefox should run from Start menu.

That can be done in different ways, for example, you can right click the Sandboxie icon, hover the browser over the sandbox where you installed both programs, click Run from Start menu, find Firefox in one of the menus, like Desktop, and Click it. Thats it. Firefox should run and you should be able to view videos with Flash.

If the above doesn't work, you got to be getting some kind of messages. Are you getting Sandboxie messages?

Bo

 

You are welcome, CWS. I hope my reply's help you find what you are looking for.

Bo

 

In my case, I don't use Sandboxie anymore (although I did when I used Windows XP) because I sandbox Firefox by doing this. That method doesn't use virtualization though, and Sandboxie can be used for programs other than web browsers.

 

Not everyone uses these browsers although most likely the majority of users probably use
one or more of the browsers you listed.

As far as Sandboxie goes that is what they specialize in. Sandboxie has had a pretty good
track record and have been at it for over 10 years.

I prefer to use a browser with no "sandboxing technology" and let Sandboxie handle that job.
Browser rarely if ever crashes and have no compatibilty issues thus so far.

 

Thats right, Sandboxie is not a browser in a sandbox

Bo

 

No offense, Brian, but you have wasted time in configuring and sandboxing and running Mozilla Firefox (from Windows Vista and above) on low integrity level, because of the very fact that Sandboxie itself, when you use and start/run Sandboxie on Windows Vista and above, Sandboxie itself simply forces/enables all applications, all web-browsers, all exes, all dlls and everything else that starts/runs sandboxed inside/under Sandboxie/Sandboxie's security/protection in the first place to start/run on untrusted level in the first place (which is lower than low integrity level that Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer use/are starting/running in, in the first place)-this was directly confirmed by Curt from Invincea on Sandboxie forums!

Besides, I'd copy Rasheed's post here:
If you think that the sandboxes from Chrome, IE and in the future Firefox are good enough for you then don't run them sandboxed, but personally I'd rather rely on SBIE. I especially like the virtualization feature, that is something that browser sandboxes don't offer, plus the most usable and the easiest, additional protection against drive-by downloads, social engineering (especially if the web-browser is a sandbox/sandboxed/has its own sandbox protection, plus it (web-browser) is running under Sandboxie).
Another plus is SBIE doesn't eat memory at all.

ZVL, on Malwarebytes anti-exploit forum, said that good coverage and replacement for SBIE is a combination of MBAM (MBAM=Malwarebytes Anti-malware (paid version)), plus MSE (MSE=Microsoft Security Essentials), plus MBAE (MBAE=Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit), but the facts are that MBAM alone eats a lot of (RAM) memory (let alone with MSE and MBAE), plus some malware can still get out (unless, you are not stupid enough to run it manually), while this is not the case with Sandboxie, since everything that runs, runs inside the Sandboxie, plus malware cannot do anything if you apply Internet access restrictions and start/run restrictions in the first place.
Cheers.

 

Sandboxie is actually virtualization software application (one of the kind), right?

 

Sandboxie is an application sandbox. You run programs in a sandbox where they run isolated from the system. All changes done by the sandboxed application gets contained within the sandbox and gone when its deleted, that way the sandboxed programs can not make permanent changes to the system, files, registry or other programs. CWS, I believe Virtualization is more like what virtual machines do. Sandboxie is sandboxing.

Bo

 

Helping to shed light on these concepts/terminology I googled a bit and found these articles:
Hardware Virtualization Vs OS Virtualization Vs Application Virtualization

Sandbox (computer security)

Imo Sandboxie definitely is a sort of "Light Virtualization", hence CWS and Bo are right. Just want to underscore Bo's statement: "Sandboxie is sandboxing" correct but sandboxing is "light virtualization"

 

You will not find the word Virtual or Virtualization anywhere in any of this topics about Sandboxie at the Sandboxie site. What do that tells you?
http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?HelpTopics

You can check every page, you wont find those words even once.

Bo

 

The author of "A Theory and Tools for Applying Sandboxes Effectively" (hxxp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mmaass/pdfs/thesis_proposal.pdf) classifies Sandboxie as not using virtualization - see p. 9.

 

No need to apologize to anyone. But let me say this, eventually you just have to have faith in certain programs. It's like getting into a car. There is a chance that you will get killed but the alternative is staying in your house forever. You just have to do the best you can with these excellent programs and have faith in them, otherwise throw your system out the window.
Good luck,
Acadia

 

The documentation for Firefox Tips is wrong for newer versions of Firefox:

See New phishing folder for Firefox for more information.

 

Just wondering why don't you post this info at Sandboxie's forums.
Hopefully this way they'll update the webpage.

 

I was hoping somebody with an account there would .

 

LOL now this is a nice one, still doesn't answer why don't you do it.