Do you enjoy trying out new software and tools on your Windows PC? Software to enhance your desktop experience? These tools will definitely help you get your job done. However, sometimes they tend to silently do some malicious things in your system. Malicious Content like Installing Malware, Keyloggers, Adware, etc. Your Anti-Virus Program will definitely track them. However, you should not download such things in the first place. Right?
Some software is very scary | shutter
So today I will show you how you can protect your PC from such unknown threats using sandbox technology. In the sandbox, you don’t need to worry about the software you download. It will be downloaded and installed in an isolated environment on your PC. Thus, save your system from potential threats. For those who are new to Sandbox Technology, here is a quick overview.
What is a sandbox?
A sandbox is basically a mechanism where you run programs in an isolated environment on your system. An environment separate from your current system. So any changes you make in this isolated environment will not affect your current system. Sandbox software is mainly used to test unverified software from untrusted third party companies.
You may have heard of VMware and Virtualbox. Both are virtualization software. You can run another operating system on top of your installed operating system. Sandbox software does the same but uses the resources of your current system. And, store your work in a temporary storage on your hard drive. You can clear this temporary memory at any time.
Now, let’s take a look at one of the Sandbox software that we are going to cover today.
shade sandbox
Shade Sandbox is a free Windows application developed by Cybergenic Security. It’s free but still need a license key to actually activate the Free software. If you don’t have an activation code, you can only try it for 2 days. It can run on Windows Vista and above. Here, we tested it on Windows 10.
Installation is quite simple. You need to add your Name and Email address. They will send you an activation code that you need to add once the software is installed. A reboot is required for successful installation. After you reboot, Shade Sandbox will start and you will get the following dialog.
You will have three browsers that have been kept in a sandboxed environment. You can start these browsers normally from your desktop. Now, one thing to note is that the files you download will be stored in the Shade folder. Click Open shade folder and there you will get all files stored in folder named C.
If you want to add other software to the Sandbox, simply drag and drop it. And, removal is as simple as selecting the app and clicking Remove apps from Shade.
Now, if you have finished testing the software, you can click Shade cleanup to delete all data about the software you just tested. So let’s say you tested some chrome extension and that extension turned out to be Adware. Now this extension will not affect the actual chrome app or your system. It will only affect sandbox environments. This way your system will not be vulnerable to new potential threats.
CPU Usage
Now the shade sandbox is actually creating a new system based on your current system. So naturally, it will need current CPU resources to power up the new system. Well, here are our CPU usage results. We tested it on a PC running Intel i3 at 3.4 GHz with 8 GB of RAM.
There is a particular increase in CPU usage when switching between applications. Just file wall Service tends to increase CPU usage when apps are running in Sandbox mode. Make the system slow down visually. So if you’re thinking of using Shade Sandbox maybe do it on a better system.
No customization
If you’ve ever used Sandboxie then this app will be a complete disappointment in terms of customization. (We’ve already shared about Sandboxie. So check it out.) You can’t customize anything. You do not receive any information about the application running on the Sandbox. You don’t get any configuration settings and even the system tray menu doesn’t have any options.
Good alternative for average user
Not everyone wants customization. For casual users, Shade sandbox can be a good alternative to Sandboxie. You don’t have to mess around with many settings and still protect your system from malware threats. So, what do you think of Shade Sandbox? Is it worth using? Let us know in the comments section.
Categories: How to
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