The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

https://www.sandboxie.com/

Sophos is excited to announce that we are making Sandboxie a free tool, with plans to transition it to an open source tool.
...
Until the open source transition is completed we have decided to make all restricted features of Sandboxie completely free.

Fantastic news for those who don't have a lifetime license or were too cheap before, and a great way to test programs for portability. *wink *wink

I consider this one of the very few "must have" software's that everyone should install on every PC, I've been using it for several years now and I'm a big fan (if you couldn't tell already), and I'm glad the new owner is keeping it alive in some form or another.

...we are making Sandboxie a free tool, with plans to transition it to an open source tool

This is a very good thing for a lot of people. While the interface is a little odd and it takes some getting used to, it's a mature, well tested, and documented sandbox program. This is useful of course for our users that want to do portability testing, but it's also very useful for security, file analysis, system testing, and much more. I'm very happy they were willing to open both the commercial license and the code.

Windows's built-in sandbox is another option for Windows 10 users: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-sandbox

SYSTEM wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 9:56 pm Windows's built-in sandbox is another option for Windows 10 users: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-sandbox

Ever since I heard about that I've been wondering what would happen to Sandboxie, especially given its slow pace of development since being bought out years ago (at least, last I checked). Good to hear it's being open sourced. I bought a lifetime license under the original dev but having it available to others such as here for free will be great.

Great news, indeed, especially for everyone involved with (testing) portable software.

FTR, as of this announcement, Sandboxie latest release is v5.31.4, dated 2019-09-10, with the following changelog:

• Removed license check and activation requirements.
• Fix IE download issues on Windows 7 and 10
• Fix IE download issues (and some file rename failures) on Windows 10 Spring 2019

FYI, after requesting a download, you'll be redirected to a mandatory Sophos download form that you need to fill in order to get Sandboxie's install package -- disposable addresses are OK.

Don't even need a disposable address, I used one and there was no confirmation needed, etc. You can just put in random gibberish.

Also, if you Google the EXE filename, you'll find official direct links...

lwc wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:36 amSo did anyone already submit it to this site's database or should I?

For the forum you mean? I don't think Sandboxie has a portable version.

You're right, I've deleted that question. Maybe when the open source transition is over, someone will volunteer to try actually making it portable.

That's like asking if NVIDIA will make their drivers portable... or an Antivirus to be portable.

Sandboxie hooks into the Windows kernel and installs its own driver in order for it to work, it won't become portable. That being said, everything else is "in the folder" even uses an .ini for all the settings which is nice, easy to backup and tweak with notepad without having to find those "keys" in the registry like so many programs do.

Regarding drivers, my role model for such matters is https://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/portable/
In the past Windows didn't have a builtin ISO mounter so you had to use a third party tool instead.
I believe WinCDEmu Portable actually installs a driver in real time and removes it once you close the program.

As for antivirus, anti-malware, etc., they're just tools. That's why you can find portable ones all over here.

lwc wrote: ↑I believe WinCDEmu Portable actually installs a driver in real time and removes it once you close the program.

I was going to make a very similar comment, but my example would be Passmark OSFMount (https://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=2056).

BTW, Wincdemu is also in TPFC's database, at https://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=2057...

Recent Ghacks.net tutorial on how to use Sandboxie at www.ghacks.net /2019/10/29/how-to-use-sandboxie-for-browsing-downloading-and-installing-programs/.

Specular wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 1:30 pm

lwc wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:36 amSo did anyone already submit it to this site's database or should I?

For the forum you mean? I don't think Sandboxie has a portable version.

supposedly there is a member-developed portable edition or there was one until the old forums were deleted

I was angry at myself for passing up the lifetime licenses which i think were only about $20 per?

the only downside on this is I wonder if it means eventually the development of Sandboxie will cease. I'm tired of these large companies buying up good programs and then abandoning them