Battle Sandboxie or Shadow Defender - with Bitdefender?

[ColonelMal]

Sometimes Bitdefender causes me problems when I'm downloading from the Internet to a folder which is protected against ransomware.

Therefore, which of these programs would be best for use on demand, just to ease the downloading to nominally designated ransomware-monitored folders? I shall of course verify the downloads before transferring them to my real environment.

Unfortunately both SBIE and SD seem similar to me.

 

[mekelek]

you can't really use Shadow Defender "on demand", once you turn it on, it's on until you restart your computer.
Sandboxie would be the good choice here.

 

[ColonelMal]

you can't really use Shadow Defender "on demand", once you turn it on, it's on until you restart your computer.
Sandboxie would be the good choice here.

Thanks for that. It would be a little inconvenient to have to reboot.

 

[mekelek]

Thanks for that. It would be a little inconvenient to have to reboot.

and it's for a different porpuse, Shadow Defender is a rollback software, everything you do and don't commit gets negated once you reboot.

 

[ColonelMal]

Thanks again. I see that Shadow Defender doesn't have a forum on its website, which I find quite unusual.

 

[Atlas147]

Each software does something different I think it's better that you understand them both before choosing between them.

Sandboxie is a sandboxing program, which would run anything you put in it in a virtual environment, which means that you can clear it without rebooting your computer. However that means that some programs might break if you run it there because it doesn't have access to drivers and some of the system files.

Shadow defender on the other hand is a rollback software, which means that it installs the program as it should be, with the drivers and such so a program will never break due to shadow defender, it will be installed fully as if shadow defender was not there. However this means that if you want to clear the changes by the software you will have to reboot your computer each time, which can be a hassle for you if you are doing this many times in a day.

For me I use both shadow defender and sandboxie for both different things. After a while you learn which programs require to install drivers and hence use shadow defender instead of sandboxie

 

[Omarzwai]

Any disadvantages using shadow defender . I mean it exactly works like system restore or has some gaps that allow viruses to enter

 

[mekelek]

Any disadvantages using shadow defender . I mean it exactly works like system restore or has some gaps that allow viruses to enter

nothing, except OP wants to use it for something it's not intended to.

 

[ColonelMal]

As an update based on my reading so far, one piece of information that I found useful is that in some ways an image backup, especially when done before some critically important work, would serve in place of Shadow Defender. Having said that, I dread having to do an image restore even though I read every where how quick and easy it is, for example with Macrium Reflect.

There are are some disadvantages with either program, but as mekelek implies, what's important is what I want to do. If what I want to do is not affected by any of these disadvantages, then I shouldn't worry.

Overall I'm still undecided... I'll read further until I convince myself which program does all, or almost all, of what I'm looking for.

 

[212eta]

Sandboxie or Shadow Defender?

Why Not Both?

 

[Deleted member 178]

Shadow Defender = light Virtualization , my review there: User Review - [Review] Shadow Defender
Sandboxie = isolation

basically the best way to use both:

Sandboxie (paid) is strong enough to be used alone if the user knows how to set it up. An AV will be useful alongside.
Shadow Defender must be used with an anti-keylogger.

 

[Glashouse]

but as @mekelek said it depends on the purpose: turning on shadow defender everytime you want to download something might be a little bit overkill as long as you don't want to revert to the old state after every reboot...

 

[Media923823]

Shadow Defender = light Virtualization , my review there: User Review - [Review] Shadow Defender
Sandboxie = isolation

basically the best way to use both:

Sandboxie (paid) is strong enough to be used alone if the user knows how to set it up. An AV will be useful alongside.
Shadow Defender must be used with an anti-keylogger.

Why must be used with an anti keylogger?

 

[ichito]

Why must be used with an anti keylogger?

SD doesn't prevent against data-leaking so it should be used along with apps that can controll such things.

 

[Deleted member 178]

Advanced settings in Sandboxie prevent specified programs running sandboxed to connect to the network.

So in a proper set sandbox made for a browser, a downloaded keylogger would be denied internet access, unless it abused the browser's process.

 

[Brie]

i read that you are not supposed to use a sandbox with bitdefender. i think it was on it's web site. AFAIK.