Sandboxie Acquired by Invincea

I haven't been bothered by 180 day re-activation that seems to happen anyway.

 

Yes...now that I know. I do agree. Thanks for heads up re 4.15. I'll stay with 4.14

 

Actually, I think I there is something wrong on my system, and I may have misunderstood these settings. Basically, what I use "direct access" for is to make downloaded files from the browser (or other tool) end up on the real desktop. But it seems like with this approach you give apps write access to all folders on the real desktop, even when you block access to certain desktop folders. Now that can not be right.

 

You can use Direct access for what you want. Thats what that setting is for.

If you block access to a folder that's placed at the Desktop and you allow Direct file access to the Desktop, files shouldn't download straight through to the blocked folder. You should be seeing a blocked access message telling you that access is denied.

A hint for you to make allowing Direct file access a little more tight, secure. For example, if you would like Firefox to be the only program (instead of All programs) running in the sandbox that has access to the Desktop, you can. In the Direct file access window (OpenFilePath) in Sandbox settings, Click Add program, select Firefox, you ll see Firefox.exe in the drop down window, Click Add, navigate to the Desktop, after selecting it, Click Apply, OK.

Bo.

 

If we put aside the notion of using the desktop as such, you can organise filesystems under drives (whether networked or local), and within folders under the drive. Those areas can be controlled by standard OS user/group access permissions anyway, but also allowed Direct access for Sandboxie, or (most of the time) have Blocked access.

So, for example, I give my image editors Direct access to the photos folder in the digital media section, but Block any other directories or drives, especially those for my "real" user data. The blocking takes priority. Photo sharing and backup works directly from the shared photos folder. If you did not provide Direct access, then different image manipulation software would not be working off the same data, and it would be hard to share and backup.

 

I've done some testing. With Opera installed in the sandbox, I need "full access" to give access to the real desktop. With Opera forced (not installed in sandbox) I can indeed use "direct access". And when I block access to folders on the desktop it will indeed give me "access denied".

So to be honest, I don't see the risk involved with "full access", as long as you block access to important folders. Basically, sandboxed apps can then only write to "C:\Users\MyPC\Desktop" and not to "C:\Users\MyPC\Desktop\Important Data". Unless I'm missing something.

 

Now you are getting the feeling how this settings work.

To make allowing Direct access or Full access a little safer, you should do what I suggested in the last paragraph of my previous post. If you set it up correctly, only Opera will have access to the desktop. Get your access window looking like in the picture. In your case, instead of firefox.exe, you ll see opera.exe.

Bo

 

Yes this is a good idea. But what I'm trying to say is that "full access" doesn't have to be dangerous, even without that setting. The only thing that bugs me is that SBIE shouldn't automatically give write access to all folders on desktop, yet it does. So you do have to block access to those folders. BTW, you need to restart apps in order to see changes to the "resource access" settings, that's why I got confused and thought there was something wrong.

 

BTW, in some sandboxes I have disabled "direct/full access", so I made shortcuts on the desktop for quick access to those sandboxed files. But I need a quick way to copy/move the files to the real system. On Win XP I used FileTargets and Piky Basket, do they still work on Win7/8, or does anyone know about similar tools? I can't make them work on Win 8.

http://www.filedropper.com/filetargets141
http://www.filedropper.com/pkysetup

 

Lifetime licenses are back and are now $34.95 for one computer, $49.95 for three computers, and $74.95 for five computers.

 

http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?HomeUse

The announcement.

http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20164#p105867

Bo

 

Beta 4.15.7 is out.
http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=19837#p104534

Fixes in 4.15.7

1) Fixed a DLL Initialization Failed error 0x0C0000142 with Chrome and possibly other 32 bit applications (hooking conflict).
2) Removed Avast from the list of known conflicts.

Bo

 

Wow, very exciting new deals. And they decided to change the homepage, a bit surprising that they focused on "safely test new software", I would promote it more as a security tool against exploits/malware.

http://www.sandboxie.com/

 

Not sure what you mean with this, because it's not quite the same as the other tools that I mentioned, perhaps you can check them out on Win 7 64 bit. The closest thing I found so far is MyFolders.

http://www.coretechnologies.com/products/MyFolders/

 

BTW, is it correct that you can't run MS Office 2013 "sandboxed"? On Win 8, all apps like MS Word try to run but they terminate themselves.

 

Supposedly, regular Office 2013 should be working sandboxed. I suggest you post about your issues running Office 2013 in this recent thread. Actually, I encourage you to do it. By doing so, Invincea will know that this is a larger problem that what they actually think it is.
http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=20140

About Office 2013 working under Sandboxie.
http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&p=105857#p105788

Bo

 

Problem is, "regular" Office 2013 is only really available to Enterprise customers, in other words, it's not what most people will use (I guess Sandboxie is not widely adopted in corporate/enterprise environments although they would likely benefit). Which means, for me, Office 2013 is not an option. There's no way I'm going to have oft-attacked applications running outside a Sandbox, and if the app vendor won't implement a sandbox, then I have to be able to run it under Sandboxie. If it won't, bad luck to it.

 

When I click on certain apps (their desktop icon) I would like them to always run sandboxed. Is that doable?

Thanks

 

Hi Cruise, with the paid version, you force programs to run them sandboxed automatically.

With the free version, you can create sandboxed shortcuts for your programs. And place the shortcuts in your desktop or task bar. For example, if you like to create a sandboxed shortcut for Firefox, open Sandboxie control and navigate to Configure>Windows shell integration, Click Add shortcut icons, Select DefaultBox, Find Firefox in one of the menus, Click it, afterward, you ll find a sandboxed shortcut for Firefox in your desktop. If you click on the sandboxed shortcut, Firefox runs sandboxed.

You can do that for any program. And you can create new sandboxes to separate programs from each other. But in the free version, you can only use one sandbox at a time.

Bo

 

Thanks Bo. I'll play around with that technique when I get more time.

 

You are welcome, Cruise. Start with something simple and easy to test. Since your default browser is designed to open up when you click in the sandboxed web browser icon that Sandboxie places in your desktop, test creating sandboxed shortcuts with something like your second favorite browser.

After your first test using the DefaultBox, go ahead and create a new sandbox and then create the sandboxed shortcut to open the browser in the dedicated sandbox. That way you can separate programs from each other and setup each sandbox according to the program.

Bo

 

OK I see what you mean, but I've never really been into Win Explorer replacements. And MyFolders is cool indeed, it allows you to quickly move apps and files out of (and into) the sandbox.