Support recovery of path (filename, wildcards)

Ideas for enhancements to the software
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Binky
Posts: 129
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:21 pm

Support recovery of path (filename, wildcards)

Post by Binky » Tue Nov 23, 2010 1:16 pm

I would like to recover changes for Firefox bookmarks and/or preferences (Options settings, NoScript whitelist, etc.) when I make the changes to each, while deleting changes made by malware. I would also like to make Sandboxie usable for non-technical users who share my PC.

Today, Sandboxie supports:
(1) OpenFilePath for bookmarks (file and backup folder) and preferences (prefs.js file), which is 100% convenient, 100% usable, 0% security.
(2) RecoverFolder for the entire Firefox profile folder, which is 10% convenient, 10% usable, 100% security.
My tests indicate RecoverFolder supports %Tmpl.Firefox% in the specification.

I use option (2) today. I see about 20 files changed in the Firefox profile folder that I never want to recover or see. When I update a bookmark, I have to remember to recover places.sqlite and the bookmarkbackups subfolder. Non-technical users may get frustrated with the large list and forgetting which file does what, so they may get in the habit of recovering all files.

I request that Sandboxie supports a new Sandboxie.ini setting, called something like RecoverPath. It would allow wildcards like OpenFilePath. This would allow me to see and recover just the files I want.

To improve usability, I also request that the new setting supports a comment field, which is displayed in Quick Recovery next to files matching the path specification. For example, the comment for places.sqlite could be "Bookmarks and history".

tzuk
Sandboxie Founder
Sandboxie Founder
Posts: 16076
Joined: Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:57 pm

Post by tzuk » Wed Nov 24, 2010 6:03 am

I am making a note of your feature request, but at the same time, here are some other ideas:

Option 3, putting your bookmarks on the Internet.

Option 4, which is my favorite (pun intended), and that is to use the PlainOldFavorites add-on to work around the Firefox all-in-one-file bookmarks system.
tzuk

Binky
Posts: 129
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:21 pm

Post by Binky » Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:30 pm

I wouldn't request a feature that only benefits me. I hope it is clear that a new RecoverPath setting (supporting wildcards) would give Sandboxie more surgical precision to achieve behavior desired by many users. In other words, to strike a better balance between security and convenience/usability.

Thank you tzuk for suggestions to help me. I feel uncomfortable putting my financial passwords on an internet server. As your banner reads "Trust No Program".

I see security and synchronization benefits to using the PlainOldFavorites add-on, even though it sacrifices many features of Firefox's built-in bookmarks. I investigated how to export Firefox bookmarks to Favorites format, and I found that I could use HTML format as an intermediary format for exporting from Firefox and importing into IE. PlainOldFavorites at addons.mozilla.org has user complaints that doesn't work with the latest Firefox. I tried installing the v1.1 beta from the author's website, but it didn't work at all on my Win7 x64 PC. Thus, PlainOldFavorites looks like a path to suffering...

tzuk
Sandboxie Founder
Sandboxie Founder
Posts: 16076
Joined: Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:57 pm

Post by tzuk » Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:15 pm

Well, as they say, "your mileage may vary." I find PlainOldFavorites very useful so I thought to suggest it as one more option to consider.
tzuk

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