Chris had an entry over on Windows Fanatics about ZoneAlarm’s new sandbox utility, ForceField, which they’ve just made available as a free download to folks who aren’t afraid of beta versions.

Since I mostly write for folks like me — people who are, at best, knowledgeable amateurs when it comes to computers and computing — I don’t usually recommend getting involved with betas. They are, by definition, buggy, temperamental, usually not full-featured, and lacking in support (in most cases), although some have forum pages that can be helpful if you can understand the geek speak that prevails there.

[I have a thing about forums and the people who write there -- who seem not to understand that folks looking for help usually don't understand the details or they wouldn't need help -- and who write, seemingly, on the assumption that everyone is as geeky as they are. Knowing, however, how difficult it is to explain things in writing without making assumptions about the readers' level of understanding, I generally keep my opinions to myself. When it comes to the über-geeks of beta, however, you need to know that the "help" may not be intelligible. On the other hand, some of those folks write better than I do.]

In this case, however, I think you might fare pretty well with a beta issue, due to the basic nature of sandboxes. A sandbox is, essentially, a virtual computer inside your computer. When you open it, it creates an impermeable litttle “room”, in which it will then open any program that you wish — a browser, for instance — and do just about anything you want with it. A major difference between that and normal operation of your computer is that nothing inside the sandbox can get to the rest of your computer. It’s sealed off, including any nasties that you might download. Also, when you close the sandbox everything goes away forever unless you’ve specifically transferred it out to the “real” PC. Sandboxes are also useful for trying out programs that you don’t necessarily want to keep. If you don’t like it, you can zap it and there won’t be any junk remaining on your machine, such as unneeded temp files or registry entries.

You can readily see the advantages of this security solution, especially if you’re in the habit of surfing on dangerous waves to questionable beaches (that’s almost a pun, but not quite). Your firewall, antivirus, malware scanner and everything else work normally, but if something manages to get in anyway…bingo…it’s gone when you close the program. BTW: Zone Labs doesn’t call ForceField a sandbox, but that’s what it is, with some frills, bells and whistles.There are other sandbox solutions, such as the well-thought-of Sandboxie. Another well-known system was recently bought by Google, and I’m sure we can expect a release from them (probably free) now that a major player like Zone Labs is preparing a major release.

ForceField is probably worth a look. I’ll be testing it over the next few days, and if there are any glitches I’ll let you know. If you survive the beta with your sense of humor intact, they’ll give you a discount on the commercial release when it’s available. Or, you can wait to see what the boys and girls in Palo Alto have to offer.

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Later: After three unsuccessful tries at installing ForceField, all of which resulted only in repeated requests from the program to send error reports to the mothership, I gave up.     I’ll continue to use Sandboxie until something better comes along.  It’s done the job for me this long.
[tags]Sandbox, beta testing, security[/tags]