Novice user-a few questions?

[joemardo1]

Hi folks,

A big hello to everyone one from a novice user, a few questions if its ok to trouble you with?

1 I have a number of hard drives and partitions on my computer, when I am running Sandboxie and browsing with a sandboxed browser,can I save to any drive or partition on my computer and the saved file will still be sandboxed?

2 If I was to right mouse click and copy that file to say my desktop, is it still sandboxed.?

3 Doing the above or other conceivable things to do, unless I tell sandboxie to recover the file, is it for all intents and purposes, even though it might be a virus, stil sandboxed< as long as I download it from a browser that is running within the Sandboxie environment?

many thanks for your kind help.
Joe

[Barb@Invincea]

Hello joemardo1,

I recommend that you read the Getting Started section, which will cover how Sandboxie works and will provide examples that are very useful:
https://www.sandboxie.com/GettingStarted

Regarding your questions:

1 I have a number of hard drives and partitions on my computer, when I am running Sandboxie and browsing with a sandboxed browser,can I save to any drive or partition on my computer and the saved file will still be sandboxed?

If you open Explorer Sandboxed, everything you do within it will be Sandboxed. As for storage, files will show up in whichever Drive you save them to while explorer is Sandboxed. But they will be stored inside your Sandbox container until you recover them to your Hard drive (or delete the contents of the Sandbox). You can always change the location of your Sandbox, so it is stored in a different hard drive.
See this entry regarding the container location:
https://www.sandboxie.com/SandboxMenu#container

2 If I was to right mouse click and copy that file to say my desktop, is it still sandboxed.?

If you are using explorer Sandboxed and pasting it to a Sandboxed Desktop folder, yes.

3 Doing the above or other conceivable things to do, unless I tell sandboxie to recover the file, is it for all intents and purposes, even though it might be a virus, stil sandboxed< as long as I download it from a browser that is running within the Sandboxie environment?

Anything you download from a Sandboxed browser will be stored in your Sandbox and open Sandboxed unless you recover it (or until you delete the contents of your Sandbox). However nothing is 100% bulletproof, so if you are planning on dealing with malware, you definitely want to have a look at the restrictions options to maximize security.
Here's a thread that might help (however, do the Getting Started guide first, or it will be a bit confusing):
viewtopic.php?p=128539#p128539

Regards,
Barb.-

[bo.elam]

Hi joemardo1, hopefully my answers to your questions complement Barbs, and help you understand Sandboxie a little better.

1. You can save/recover files out of the sandbox to any drive in your computer. Make sure to add the folders where you want files to be recovered in Sandbox settings>Recovery>Quick recovery.

Once you recover a file out of the sandbox, if the file is executed, it runs unsandboxd unless you navigate to it using a sandboxed version of Windows explorer. Or, to make sandboxing of files more convenient and automatic, you force programs to run sandboxed. Forced programs is a feature that gets unlocked and becomes available to you when you purchase a Sandboxie license to register your copy of Sandboxie.

By using Forced programs, you can force your PDF reader, video players, Office programs, all browser (except Edge), etc, to run sandboxed whenever they run. So, for example, if you recover a PDF file to your desktop, when you run the PDF, it ll run sandboxed automatically. The paid version also gives you the option to run different programs in separate sandboxes. So, you can create a dedicated sandbox for your PDf, for your videos, etc. By doing this, you get better security and maximize isolation.

2. Read answer to 1.

3. What you do in the sandbox, stays in the sandbox, unless you allow it out. You allow things out when you recover a file or you enable Direct access to something via Sandbox settings. Like for example, if you allow Direct access to your Firefox bookmarks, Bookmarks gets saved out of the sandbox bypassing sandboxing. Allowing something like bookmarks is safe and is convenient to do. In my opinion, it would be very uncomfortable not to allow something like bookmarks. But in general, try to allow as little as possible as every time you allow something out, you are opening a hole.

For the most part, I allow out as little as I can without making myself inconvenient. I want to use programs in the sandbox as I would use them outside the sandbox, and I achieve that. So, try to strike a balance between convenience and security whenever you create a new sandbox-

Bo