In another post I described the advantages of running Firefox and the NoScript plugin. This combination stops a lot of stuff including many zero day exploits that traditional virus packages miss. In fact most virus packages give a false sense of security and the average Windows box is still pretty vulnerable even with one running. There is another very strong tool for protecting your Windows system its called Sandboxie.

Sandboxie patches your system so that all calls to the file system go through it. You can create a sandbox and put Explorer or Firefox or your mail client inside it. When the sand boxed application runs it gets read access to your file system, but all writes go to a specially segregated location on your hard drive. What this means is that you can trivially role back any changes that any malicious code makes to your system. You can also try out a new software package knowing you can remove it completely as well as opening email attachments without fear that it will kill your system.

This isn't a fool proof system since code that sends out your personal information will still run if it is activated even in a sand box. NoScript still has its uses even in this environment. It comes down to having much better granularity when dealing with Windows. You can decide how applications access the hard drive and completely remove changes they make. Since many installers leave trash on your hard drive or Registry its nice to be able to completely remove something after you install it. You can also use this for privacy protection since you can roll back to a prior point. You could open your browser, spend the evening browsing the web, and then remove every trace of the entire session.

Benefits of the Isolated Sandbox

• Secure Web Browsing: Running your Web browser under the protection of Sandboxie means that all malicious software downloaded by the browser is trapped in the sandbox and can be discarded trivially.
• Enhanced Privacy: Browsing history, cookies, and cached temporary files collected while Web browsing stay in the sandbox and don't leak into Windows.
• Secure E-mail: Viruses and other malicious software that might be hiding in your email can't break out of the sandbox and can't infect your real system.
• Windows Stays Lean: Prevent wear-and-tear in Windows by installing software into an isolated sandbox.

If you want to give it a try here is a link to their site. Sandboxie