Sandboxie lets you run programs in an isolated space which will prevent them from making permanent changes to other programs and data on your computer.

Sandboxie lets you run programs in an isolated space which will prevent them from making permanent changes to other programs and data to your computer. When you browse the web, changes occur to your system. Most of the time these changes are harmless, like recording the addresses of websites you have visited (and when), so the browser can help you complete a web address that you type in. Whether these changes are harmless or harmful, they do in fact happen to your computer system. It requires neither the disabling nor blocking of functions available to Web sites through the browser. Instead, it isolates and quarantines the outcome of whatever the Web site may do to your computer, including the installation of unsolicited software. There is no trade-off of functionality for security: the Web site can use the full range of active content tools, and if it uses these tools maliciously to install software or otherwise make changes to your computer, then these changes can be easily undone. When the company was bought out, this brought the usual complaints about limitations in the free version. In our testing, we found that it does indeed now limit you to one virtual space, but that's all we need at a time making the free version very useable. Also, don't forget that while there are other sandbox and virtual PC programs Sandboxie still does the job and is easier to use than most.

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