Is paying for antivirus a waste of money?

The program runs things in a virtual environment much DOSBox or a vm. With a VM you can even go further by browsing from there where any bugs get trapped in VHD never making it to the physical host as a rule when a firewall and av program is present. And VM is simply dumped afterwards to avoid spreading anything.

Here I have a totally separate physical machine in use that can be used for isolation as well. I can simply wipe the drives clean at any time and drop an image back on in no time and never have down time with the main. But for most that isn't one of the options they would generally have available especially when only owning one machine. And actually sand boxing isn't any 100% guaranty nothing will spread since you still interact with the host OS as some point.

What Deep Freeze does since that is a totally different app is much like having the "Read Only" box checked off on an entire drive where any unintended changes are simply discarded on the next system restart. That locks the drive up from any software changes which can generally interfere as well with the normal operation of the programs people run who generally will see files saved to folders on the same!

The Sand box effect on the other hand is a total isolation from anything else being again more or less like running something on a VM with limited access to much of anything. But this is also what will let older apps not even compatible with the newer OSs run on the VM environment instead. DOSBox allows for old 8bit dos games as well as other 8bit and 16bit apps.

AcuraTML said:

@ blutos cousin.

Sandboxie a different way of protecting yourself from harmful sites or software. Sometimes you become curious on a site and just want to still check it out even if you are not downloading anything, if you have Sandboxie running you’ll still be protected from any harmful threats.

It would also be if in case your trying out a new software and want to test out that software Sandboxie also comes in handy in that situation as well. Sandboxie works in containing the program you open with Sandboxie inside a small box section which whatever happens inside that box does not go to the whole system.

It works out both ways and depending on what you are doing and how you set up Sandboxie it could be close to what could help you out in situations you didn’t expect. It would still be good to still have extra protection and not just count on Sandboxie to protect you all the way but can provide you with a different way of utilizing your computer and the internet.

And there are so many other options running Sandboxie....

Plus if you really have a concern and you lose sleep and don't have the means for a image back up....

You can run deep freeze with Sandboxie and your system will be air right and locked down at the core kernel level, isn't that cool or what?

And just toggle on and off when your ready for major updates across the board....

IOW it's an application virtual machine and web browsers are applications I'm Sure That's not original or the first one after all this time and IE11,Edge and Google are sandboxed now anyway F/F is working on it so that covers the 3 web browsers mentioned here with sand boxes outside of .exe downloads anyway but like Nighthawk says Windows or whatever on a VM takes all that way further but like Nighthawk also says nobody can guarantee something can't crawl out of a sandbox ☻☻

AcuraTML said:

@ night hawk

I spent 14 months throwing every bug, dos grab and knock out, and worm at one at a couple lab work stations and the final result is both of these units came back with not even a dot re written #1 in the registry and #2 and nothing on the primary hard drive everything clean like before the fact.... that's only running Sandboxie not deep freeze

Sandboxie will protect your system 1000% if you know the ins and outs using this very fine app.

Deep freeze is over kill, every cyber cafe or literary has every terminal looked down with deep freeze there is nothing that will infect a device that is protected by deep freeze or Sandboxie if administered correctly with proper user guide line...

And that's correct no av or any other av or protection is required runny one or the other or both suggested apps in the likes of Sandboxie or deep freeze

Keep drinking the Kool aid :
You *really have any idea * of how many new exploits ,virus and malware routines were written during the 14 months of your experiment in futility or were made before lunch today that might be able to crawl out of a sandbox or two ?


EDIT:
OTOH Deep Freeze might be clever in the venus you mentioned

Night Hawk said:

What Deep Freeze does since that is a totally different app is much like having the "Read Only" box checked off on an entire drive where any unintended changes are simply discarded on the next system restart. That locks the drive up from any software changes which can generally interfere as well with the normal operation of the programs people run who generally will see files saved to folders on the same!.

You Mean like a standard user account in Windows and no admin password but something more than that ?

The Sand box effect on the other hand is a total isolation from anything else being again more or less like running something on a VM with limited access to much of anything. But this is also what will let older apps not even compatible with the newer OSs run on the VM environment instead. DOSBox allows for old 8bit dos games as well as other 8bit and 16bit apps

I've always been under the understanding that VM's were the Cadillac ( best ) of isolation strategies .


OTOH Deep Freeze sounds kind of clever and might even work to apoint in internet cafes and other public venues but I can't see it outperforming a VM for isolation

Well most anything can be run on a VM except resource demanding games and apps where hardware comes into play. Then you need physical devices to work with. Malwares and other things in contrast are software/OS orientated either intended to recode files or drop other bugs when connecting to a host server where they come from.

The general risk at this time for most is drive by bugs when hitting some site on a search without any screening at work for malicious code detection. Or the worst lack of common sense when simply going ahead and clicking on something and the trap is sprung! Kids borrowing parents's laptops, installing anything without asking first not having any general experience managed that one on a laptop I was asked to clean off!

Even when going to try something out on a VM at this times whether on Hyper-V or a 3rd party ware like VMware or Oracle's VirtualBox you can end up spreading something if the file transfer factor is present! Sharing things back and forth between VM and Host OS still allows a vulnerability there to be onguard about.

But you can download and run things first on VM that are able to in order to see what comes up. In fact some of the av companies offer additional VM protection options knowing Virtualization is still a growth industry. With the software here I have that type of protection for malware detection as well as web filtering seen with the app being run on the VM itself. Couldn't do it with all of the VMs however but was at least free for the one!

The Deep Freeze program according to Wiki is both intended for MS and Mac workstations, datacenters, server type deals and not generally for the private home user as a rule. That can be looked over at the product's home site for specifics however. Instant Restore Software for Windows PCs, Mac and Servers | Deep Freeze

That is the type of security app data centers that don't see regular backups, system images made of, or program changes a home pc would tend to see often but redirects any writes to any of the drives into limbo which simply vanish with any system restart while servers are typically kept going 24/7 except for scheduled down times.

I would highly doubt you would ever find any use for it unless setting up a data center to start with! Some of these programs are corporate geared not intended for home use to begin with. On the day I mentioned before where I didn't have the av running when getting hit with the ad generator app that went on smooth as silk not being detected simply having the Windows firewall running may have seen a prompt come up about it?! Will never know on that however.

For most of us who are constanly in and out we have already picked up on the "INs" and "OUTs" of the DOs and Do Nots as a rule and can actually run most of the time without anything even WD! That is because we make frequent backups as well as won't waste any time wiping a drive or two clean if necessary if we get hit. Generally a system image covers any losses from an infection.

For "Mr." or "Ms." uninformed user if we can generalize they don't how to even know when a bug is on or not unless some type of scam ware is displaying itself when things are not working right. "Oh that dang _ _ _ brand pc is acting up again! need a new pc!" of he drive is no good?! The facts are the lack of general upkeeping like the occasion defrag or clearing out browser histories, randomly selecting passwords, etc. is generally what leaves typical user at the highest risk! And measuring the risk factors for each user's habits is where the stakes can be high!

As I thought to myself years ago when deciding a free av wasn't going to be enough when looking at overall web security I knew then that any pair for software would need to have something to offer over simply tossing two or three freebie extras on along with a free av program. When this type of discussion came up over the weekend with a friend I had pointed to VIPRE as a better replacement to the then retail AVG which we had all been favoring his comment just heard was: "Me and my wife couldn't even get by without.. " said program at this time since he went to mention how it catches everything.

Now these are people who generally need someone else to clean bugs up and even get the OS working or see a clean install as they don't invest any time in learning things for themselves as a rule. And this is where the best available options become the almost mandate type of item put on the list of To Dos! Generally the paid for that sees good support as another item of interest over those programs who simply take money and run are the type you would likely recommend. We can run around in shorts gawking like chickens and still know how to recover while the typical user would be dumbfounded by the little things.