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Let the Internet play in a Sandbox
I have spent some time over the past few weeks trying to develop ways to proactively prevent users from infecting themselves from the evils of the Internet, namely spyware. Unfortunately, most of the time when you are surfing the Internet by the time you realize you are infected, it is too late. Spyware and malware has been developed to the point where it can be present on the most seemingly benign website and even pose as a legitimate application. A great example of this is the “Antivirus 2010” malware that has become all too common.
A few of my users have been experimenting with a freeware product I recommend called Sandboxie to see if this helps keep their system free and clear. We have found that the use of this particular program has helped thwart the infection of malware and viruses significantly on computers.
The program, Sandboxie, basically allows you as the user to run programs “in a sandbox” where you have the option to revert or wipe any changes made by the program. Consider this as an example. Let’s say you are surfing the Internet in your “sandbox” using Internet Explorer or Mozilla. If you visit a webpage that downloads something to your computer that you are unaware of or attempts to install spyware, you can pull up Sandboxie and tell it to wipe all of those changes made and leaves your computer unharmed. The reason this is so effective is because most of the time when surfing the Internet you will stumble across website laden with spyware without even realizing it and Sandboxie allows you to reverse those accidents without resulting in long, arduous, and sometimes expensive reloading of Windows.
The Internet is riddled with malware and most of the time you won’t see it coming. Programs like Sandboxie will allow you to put protections in place that will guard your usage of the Internet and prevent major issues from occurring.
