"Buffer Zone"
Fred; Check out Buffer Zone at http://www.trustware.com. Freeware for home users - virtual security for your PC. Seems pretty interesting. Pretty red line round the screen when in the Zone. --- Charley Lanham
Thanks, Charlie. Buffer Zone is a form of "sandbox," or lightweight "virtual machine." It sets up a protected memory space into which you can download programs and play with them; the virtual "walls" of the sandbox keep the effects of the downloads constrained, so that (in theory) a malicious or poorly-coded download can't do harm to your PC or its files.
Trustware's tools come in two flavors: "Single-application freeware that provides protection against hostile code embedded in files downloaded through any one application, including file sharing clients, browsers, email clients, messenger and other peer-to-peer software.... [And] full protection software that protects against files downloaded through any application whatsoever. For only $49.95, you'll protect your PC forever against viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, worms and all other forms of hostile code...."
But there are a number of other vendors with very similar offerings, too; even others also called "BufferZone." ( http://tinyurl.com/zagee )
And please
also note that while there's a measure of convenience in a "run beside" tool
like this, you also can get free and low-cost Virtual PCs (also called "virtual
machines," or VMs) that do all that and
much more besides; giving you an entire, separate, safely isolated PC emulated entirely in software. That's what I use when I'm playing with something
potentially dangerous.
See:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18600449
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=virtual+pc&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=vmware&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000
http://www.google.com/search?q=virtual+pc
http://www.google.com/search?q=vmware
Buffer Zone's concepts are completely sound, but there are many, many ways of implementing those ideas, besides Trustware's. <g>
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