The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

I'm so sorry to hear this man... Forgive me for asking in the first place. Hope the pain is manageable and I wish you the best for your continued recuperation and your studies.

 

Sorry to hear you've had health issues. Here's wishing you a full recovery!

Best wishes
pegr

 

Of course we will never know 100% if this Tony is the real Tony, the author of SD. But as I said in the past, I believe that only the real author of SD would have enough affinity with his own code in order to implement all the recent changes into the program in a short few months. In my view this is a strong indication that the original developer of SD is back. Of course this is just my opinion for what its worth. The current SD issues need to be adresssed by Tony and this can only happen if the affected users contact him directly with details of their specific problems. A new dedicated SD forum is also necessary as Patrick has suggested.

SD never caught the eye of big corporations because it has always been a chinese one-man operation. Not many small projects ever succeed to catch the public eye. Small development teams don't have the resources to advertize, affiliate with big companies, and accomplish high exposure for their code as a result. The ones that are worthy are usually bought-out by bigger companies long before they ever get the chance to reach a state of high exposure.

If you ask the average computer user about sandboxing or light virtualization, they will be clueless. On the other hand, almost everyone nowadays has heard of more traditional protection like firewalls and signature-based antimalware utilities. The same applies with the very necessary issue of backing up: Most users do not realize the importance of a backup and have never ever performed a full backup of their systems. When they get burned they learn the hard way; and even then a lot of them will still not back their systems up. People need to be educated in regard to the preservation of their data, and the big companies have failed in instilling this very basic principle to their customers.

Most users have never heard of utilities like Sandboxie or SD either. Such tech is still relatively new and only recently sandboxes have been integrated into the products of well known security companies; so it's no surprise that knowledge of such tech is limited within the confines of security software fans. I hope this will change in the future.

Consider this: The big security software players have invested so much into traditional levels of protection and then a small one-man program like SD comes around that is able to contain and fully undo program and disk changes. How are the big companies going to view this? It is not in their best interests for such tech to ever become common knowledge to the layman. Seasoned users know that traditional antimalware utilities are still necessary for real-time protection regardless if they use Sandboxie, SD etc. Multi-layered protection is still the best policy. On the other hand we must also consider that with a program like SD there would be no need for post-infection repairs/cleanups and no leftovers.

From a business standpoint this would be bad for the big antimalware players because it could potentially undermine the overall value of their products in the eyes of the uninitiated. I have introduced light virtualization to many new users, and the first question I usually get is "why do I need an antivirus then if I have such a program installed?" Most users fail to understand the importance of multilayered protection until someone patiently explains to them that a program like SD doesn't protect; it just reverses the damage already caused by malware that may have somehow managed to bypass existing traditional layers of protection.

Once again this is just my view for what its worth. If you disagree please express your views in a civil and non-confrontational manner.

 

I seriously doubt it that Sandboxie is relatively new. For many, many years, Tzuk didn't want to come out with a x64 version of Sandboxie. He finally gave in to future.

Best regards,

 

As you said that this is your view. Others have their own views too. Therefore, when others express their views, you shouldn't tell them to refrain from ...... when they are expressing their views. This is not civil. I hope you understand this and you won't repeat this in future.

Best regards,

P.S. No hard feelings.

 

I am sorry if I have offended you Mohamed, this was not my intention. In my view your comments could potentially put new users off SD, that's all I meant with my "refrain" comment. It was never personal, so I was surprised when you said that "I have lost it".

You know that I do respect you man, and I also value your technical experience and input; I have made this clear in the past. Look at the input you have contributed lately at the AX64 thread for example. We just have to be able to discuss things calmly and openly, even when we disagree about certain things.

Of course there are no hard feelings from my side either. Lets just discuss.

 

Thank you bro, I really appreciate it.

Best regards,

 

I remember that. I used to hate the fact that I couldn't use Sandboxie on my WinXP x64 back then

I meant "relatively new" in the context that the tech behind Sandboxie is newer than traditional antivirus protections.

 

If you want to know how is the security product from china, please try to read this news with google translate:
http://www.nbd.com.cn/articles/2013-02-26/716855.html

largest Trojan clients in this world made by a chinese security company.

 

Hi Mohamed,
I'm not sure why you are saying this, I have not criticised you. I have been involved with Shadow Defender and Tony long before he even had his own Shadow Defender forum so I feel able to comment.

Patrick

The reason Tzuk held out so long against x64 Sandboxie is that he believed that he couldn't offer the same degree of protection as in the the 32 version and he didn't want to make something that was a kludge. There was a lot of user pressure on him at the time to do something and so (with proviso that that was the case and informing his usership of the situation) he went ahead.

 

Cutting_Edgetech
CyberMan969 says so well what my feelings are that I can't add to it.

best wishes
sdmod
Patrick (ex Shadow Defender Forum Global Moderator)

 

Maybe it's the Chinese military using SD to corrupt our PC's, and there is no actual Tony.

 

Patrick, I totally agree with that. Have you approached Tony as to re-establishing the SD forum on the new website? ...if so, what was his response?

TS

 

Re: shadow defender

I have not had any issues but I make a point of taking a manual Rx snap before entering Shadow Mode (not after entering SM), that way I have a double layer of protection should I not like what ever I went into SM to protect against in the first place. (See my signature).

 

Hi Shadow,
I asked him initially when he first came back if he was going to start the forum up again and he said (as I remember) "Not at present" but if he did he would consider me for my mod job again.
I'll write to him tonight and ask if he will re-consider. I have considered asking him if I could start a Shadow Defender forum of my own. The reason I was considering that is I would have an admin status and not only would I be able to ban spammers but remove their membership entirely. The reason I became Global Moderator of the Shadow Defender forum originally was because the spam was getting out of control and Tony was not focused on it (maybe he didn't have the time). When Tony went missing, I could ban people from all the forums but only Tony could remove their membership.
This presented me with a major problem because spammers were leaving live links in the membership list and the only way for me to get rid of them would have been to completely remove membership. The spammers seemed to think that it was worth it to become a member, plaster the forums with child pornography and adverts for trainers and then even if I banned them they still appeared as members and kept the member list links live. It was extremely frustrating and eventually they would become members more quickly than I could ban them. Eventually the forum software (known bug) let me down and it made it impossible to continue.
Having said that, I'd love to see a new active forum that Tony would be present for.

sdmod Patrick

ps I don't think it's a new website

 

Patrick, I can't imagine his reluctance to starting-up an official forum on the website as it would serve as a support vehicle where Tony would need to post info only as he deemed necessary. Furthermore it would provide a more responsible product image to those coming to the website!

And with an experienced moderator, such as yourself, he would be free of most (if not all) administrative issues.

 

+1

 

I've asked Tony this evening, by email, if he'd consider a new forum. I'll post here when I receive a reply.

 

Good luck my friend - c'mon Tony, wake up and smell the coffee.

 

Thanks Aladdin!

 

Thanks Cyberman! I have never been one to give up on anything. I take it day by day. I'm just hoping to break into a new career field now. I had so much time invested in my other job only to loss the 11 years I put into it. I hope maybe I can return to the field except in a difference position which would be computer related.

 

Thanks Pegr! It means a lot to hear good wishes from my friends here at Wilders!

 

LOL, I hope not! I have a friend that's like a brother to me that lives in Hong Kong that I'm always giving a hard time. I was just telling him how cyber sneaky they are lol
I meet him while training in Wing Chun (Chinese Martial Art) here in the states. We was roomates for years before he moved back to Hong Kong. He speaks fluent English. I wish he could help Tony with support. I doubt Tony speaks Cantonese though which is what my friend speaks. It's primarily spoken only in Hong Kong.

 

It's just really difficult to know for sure if it's him. I sure hope it is though because I want to see SD excel! I also really do care about Tony's well being!

 

Does Shadow Defender even attempt to protect the MBR, or does it simply not care about that and is content to have the drive kick in at startup?