Sandboxie-Plus v1.0.11

FWIW, most users just want to take their browser(s) out for a ride in their Sandboxie scooter. And the real marvel of the app is the technology implemented to keep us safe out there on that increasingly treacherous internet speedway without stressing over too many bells and whistles in the interim.
In my insignificant, irrelevant, and inconsequential opinion a lot of of these "feature requests" may serve the needs of a very limited few and end up being a useless space of 0's and 1's for nearly everyone else. The precept of kiss (keep it simple stupid) will keep most users in the know.
In context, too many instances of whether or not the red dots blink on and off and all of these benign flashing notices and all of these little boxes to click on or off to fret over will eventually turn Sandboxie into an unnecessarily bloated and over baked, over the top potato. Bless you, David,
for apparently being willing to bend over backwards to entertain nearly every whimsical feature request that floats across these forum pages. But most people are more interested in a simple to use app that can be maintained to be as bullet proof as possible. Most Sandboxie users, including
the multiple thousands of people that never heard of Wilders Security Forums, are ecstatic to know that Sandboxie is alive and well and in the more than capable hands of an obviously talented developer and could care less whether there's an option to hide the little flashing red pepperoni pizza dots.

 

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Note: Patreon is (only) 163 PATRONS

 

Saying it like it is.

I have nothing to prove, to myself or anyone else about how I use and manage this software. Sorry if some don't care to have legit concerns raised by interested users and want to "cut the discussion short."

I mean, fine, have all these settings and features, I don't care; it doesn't bother me if the vast majority of them are idle and not creating problems. But the UI is getting very cluttered and complicated, I'm telling you. Catering to a very, very select few alienates more than just one user, I telling you that, too. Didn't someone prev. raise the idea of creating a poll to determine what to keep and what to dump? Can't ALL of the more advanced settings be compiled under one header rather than having them scattered around the UI? Classic--no, I'm done with that UI.

 

Yeah, well, no one should expect Sandboxie to remain a charity case forever. But I'd rather pay $x for a bullet proof app that is technology focused and at least bears some resemblance in usability to the original Sandboxie as opposed to an increased $y subscription fee for an overblown mess because a few people thought it was a cute idea by insisting to add as many utterly useless features as possible. Just desserts to the developer.

post script. If Sandboxie goes the route of yearly subscriptions, perhaps David would consider offering a "Basic edition" specializing in sandboxing browsers with maybe a few extra apps and scaling back a lot of the clutter that's already been implemented. An "Advanced edition" could also be marketed to please people who will undoubtedly continue to find more bells to ring, more whistles to blow, and more suggestions to tweak the tweaks. Just a thought.

 

Is this your impression of Sandboxie Plus as it is currently? If so I feel that's a bit harsh.

I feel like that is the difference between what is already being offered - the Classic Version or the more feature-filled Sandboxie Plus. Just my view.

 

Is Sandboxie ever going to be a completed project if David has to keep making changes that a limited few ask for? Can't please everyone right? If I were David I would just make a finished project, in his vision, make it as simple as possible so more will use, make a free and paid version so he can make some cash for all his hard work, done.

 

For instance, I just tried 1.0.11, so many settings, took me 3 or 4 minutes to figure out how to open a browser sandboxed. I could not figure out, if its possible, how to just click on the Sandboxie icon to open a web browser sandboxed. Also I could not right click on a program to open sandboxed.

Installed 5.55.11, opening a web browser was as simple as just clicking on the icon on the desktop, and I could open a program in the sandbox by just right clicking on it. So for me this is the version I would run, I would always pick simpler and easier.

 

Thanks Stapp, those options were probably there, I was skimming thru everything pretty fast. All I know is that after installation, with default settings, the desktop icon would not launch a browser and right click a program would not work. If there were settings to allow these options in my haste I did not find them. I did figure out how to create a new box.

 

I myself didn't found plus UI any more difficult than classic UI. I prefer Plus UI. Granted I'm not an active Sandboxie user.

 

I think it's just a matter of what you're used to and what you get used to. I have the Classic version installed on just one laptop now (mainly because of the slightly smaller footprint of the Classic version which that particular machine benefits from wherever possible, and also just to test if issues that come up are exclusive or affect both versions), and I am all fingers and thumbs when I have to make a change somewhere in Sandboxie Control. I have to really think about what I'm doing. I'm now so used to Sandman and I would say I find that the latter the more user friendly of the two. Not meaning to discount anyone else's personal experience, but that is just mine.

Also digmor crusher if you want to carry the settings of one box to another, you can do so by right clicking the Sandbox with the settings you want to duplicate, and choose Duplicate Sandbox. Then you just need to give it a name. Right clicking desktop icons and choosing to run sandboxed should work, just as launching the desktop shortcut icon. Not sure what's gone wrong for you there. I hate desktop icons & hide them, so for apps other than the default browser (which I have the shortcut for pinned to my taskbar), I right click on the sandbox I want to use and select Run > Run Programme, which brings up a box in which you write the name of the app - like firefox, chrome etc and then they will open.

You're right that at the at the end of the day, this is David's baby, as it were, and he will never be able to please everyone with changes made and changes not made. I think we're just really lucky to have such a skilled developer keeping the software alive and also breathing some new life into it.

 

"Hotkey" was a requested feature. While I don't use "Hotkey" daily. I have used "Hotkey" on occasion. I do appreciate having "Hotkey" feature with Plus.

I moved to Plus early on wanting to be familiar with Plus. But, I stayed with SbieCrl -> Classic tray icon. At some time. DavidXanatos added Plus feature "Show Classic icon". At some time DavidXanatos dropped Sandboxie Control (SbieCtrl) from Plus builds. I expressed an interest in having SbieCtrl with Plus builds. DavidXanatos added SbieCtrl back next Plus build.
I've consistently run Sandboxie longer than any tool. While I've not progressed past basic user. While I've not used Sandboxie to its fullest potential. I'm still married to Sandboxie. I'm grateful for Ronen Tzur. I'm grateful for Invincea/Sophos. I'm grateful for DavidXanatos. I'm grateful for all Sandboxie users.
I'm thinking: feature requests - constant development is a product of open source.

 

That's the one.
I generally run in a LUA so I just tried in an admin account and had exactly the same outcome.

Could anyone spare 10 minutes and try this scenario out using the trial version of DB Power Amp (you don't need a clean install of Sandboxie).

My config is as below (although I'd hope it doesn't matter):
Sandboxie-Plus-x64-v1.0.11.exe
Edition: Windows 10 Pro
Version: 21H2
OS Build: 19044.1466
Experience: Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0

 

Looking an awful lot like individual problems 'cause I can assure you that for most users exactly the same actions as described above are possible with Sbie+(v1.0.11), too. Most simple and without hassle.

 

This "Hotkey" in my opinion is one of the most valuable features, in particular in case of "emergency" with viruses or gone-rogue-programs for which Sandboxie was built to deal with in the first place. For me the most convenient combination has turned out to be the adjacent keys <AltGr><Space> and I've come to also appreciate this "TerminatorKey" very much as the quickest way to remedy any situations of hanging programs/browsers.

Generally speaking I have to say that I find that gist of almost denouncing Sandboxie-Plus as some kind of "bloatware" - as expressed in some recent posts- barely comprehensible. All the more when I consider the degree of matureness and stability that has been achieved in these latest v1.0.1x-releases. IMHO there is little to nothing "overblown" in there and such harsh criticism would seem highly unjustified.

 

I'm still happy with Davids classic version. For me the options and setting sandboxie already have are enough. I just care about security fixes to keep sandboxie up to date (or adding a popular Browser).
Thanks David for all you work and dedication. Don't get burned out by trying to include everything users want. Keep it simple

 

If you say "Basic edition" you want to pay $x ... I take it the functionality without the premium features is already enough for you. So does this mean I should lock out old features? In what way would the free edition be different from the payed basic? Should I add a nag screen "Buy me, NOW!" to the free edition that starts appearing after 40 days like WinRAR does?

Currently you have 3+1 options, 0. free edition without new features, 1. well cheep "yearly subscriptions", 2. "get to use the current build and 1 year of updates for ever", and 3. not so cheep "Get to use the current major build and all its updates forever", at some point there will be a new major build though for which large certs that are older than 2 years will need to be renewed. An entirely perpetual license is IMHO not economically viable on the long turn.

 

Well, for me it was not a matter of 10 minutes but of at least 1,5 hours . But I was curious and I would like to give you now a small feedback, unfortunately surely not a satisfying one:

I was not even able to install sucessfully dBpoweramp in a (newly created) sandbox. I have tried several times but it never worked.

As I have no experience in installing software in a sandbox, of course I thought that it must have to do with a mistake from my side. So I tested to install other software in the sandbox, chosing randomly "Audacity" and "Aborange Crypter" (an encryption program). In both cases installation in the sandbox and starting it afterwards worked without problems. So the issue seems to be connected specifically with dBpoweramp. On the other hand, installing dBpoweramp outside of Sandboxie and starting the CD ripper worked fine!

Here the error message I got when trying to install within Sandboxie:



After double clicking the exe-file from the desktop (as suggested in the error message) the user interface of dBpoweramp indeed opened but I could not start the CD Ripper (nor the Music Converter or the Batch Converter). When clicking on the icons nothing happened.

As mentioned above, when installing the software outside from Sandboxie, all worked fine.

Tested with:
- the file dMC-R17.4-Ref-Trial.exe from this website: https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper.htm
- Sandboxie-Plus version 1.0.11
- Windows 10 Home, 21 H 2, 64 bit, Build 19044.1526

Sorry that I cannot give you better news.

 

Or, you could try and please everyone with something like what foobar2000 offers, the ability to enable/disable individual menu items. This is found under 'File - Preferences - Display - Context Menu'.



The other really nice aspect of it, is if you hold down the shift key whilst bringing up the menu it will show all the available items, so you don't need to dig in and enable it for that one off change.

Having said that I couldn't be happier with what's already there.


EDIT: Thanks @Peter 123 for pointing out 'Upload a File'

 

No, it is not necessary. They only have hidden a little bit the possibility to upload directly. When writing your post, you have to click on the button "More Options" (in the lower right corner). Then you will find another button "Upload a File" and from there you can do it directly.

 

Ha, I'm am idiot, disregard my earlier ramblings, I unchecked those options in my rush to install as I usually uncheck all options installing new software except for adding a desktop icon. Sorry everyone.

 

By the way:
The install option "Automatically start Sandboxie-Plus" was always a bit unclear to me. Does it mean:
- "Start automatically after the installation is finished."
or
- "Start automatically together with Windows (Autostart)." ?

I assume it's the second one but to my mind it should be clarified. Of course only if such a clarification is compatible with the learned behaviour of a great majority of users.

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You are welcome.

 

@DavidXanatos Maybe ultimately offer two versions of Sandboxie. A "browser version" that would require a relatively minimal amount of configuration yet have the versatility to handle a variety of different browsers.
And a more sophisticated version could be offered with options to sandbox virtually any app the user desired and with a plethora of configuration options, etc. Both versions could be given the choice to go with either the "classic" or "plus" look.
And no free versions available. (So sorry my dear sugar dumplings.)
Just a thought.

 

I uploaded it, then dragged it onto the post and saved, but it showed not only in the body but also as an attachment, so I deleted it from the attachment area, which subsequently deleted it from the body too! I think now I've clicked 'Full Image' it worked.