Safe browsing, no malware protection or firewall needed

What if I tell you that you can navigate your browser to any of the malicious sites and download viruses, spyware, and any other kind of malware until you are blue in the face...and your computer will be perfectly safe and clean. And one more thing, what if I tell you that you don't need any anti-virus or anti-malware program for that?

By now you probably think that all these years of riding motorcycles in the sun caused me to lose many of my brain cells. Well, generally you may be right but not this time, let me tell you how I do this.

How do computers get infected?

In order for a computer to get infected with a virus, warm, Trojan horse, and any other number of malware infections, one condition must be true...the malicious piece of code has to enter the computer. A virus can enter a computer in a number of ways: visiting a bad website, opening an email attachment, downloading files, inserting an infected CD Rom into a computer, etc.

Isolated and safe browsing

Isolated or contained browsing allows you to visit any website and download anything (even actual viruses) without getting your computer infected.

To understand what isolated browsing means think of cloth diapers vs. disposable diapers, and think of the poop as the virus. With a cloth diaper, you have to wash the diaper to be able to use it again, which can be equated to cleaning your computer after a virus infection. But with a disposable diaper, you simply trow the diaper away and use a new one, so imagine having a disposable computer, and every time you have a problem, you trow it away and use a new one.

Programs like Sanboxie creates a contained and controlled environment inside your computer by isolating the web browser (or any other program for that matter). Once started from within Sanboxie, the web browser have read access to files on your computer, but nothing can be written outside of the virtual box. Even if you download a file, it will be saved in the relevant directory inside the Sanboxie box unless your explicitly instruct it otherwise. So even if you deliberately choose to download a virus, it can only live within the Sanboxie box, and with one click of a button you can nuke the box and everything in it vanish (you also have the option to save items to your computer).

My setup

I have Sanboxie installed on all  my computers, and to avoid clicking on the Sanboxie menu and launch the browser (2 - 3 mouse clicks), I created a simple batch file for launching the browser, and a simple one to nuke the Sanboxie box.

Browser start batch

Open a text file and type (or copy/paste) the following text: "C:\Program Files\Sandboxie\Start.exe" Z:\OperaPortable\OperaPortableOneUse.exe. 

The first part "C:\Program Files\Sandboxie\Start.exe" is the location of the Sanboxie Start.exe file. The second part Z:\OperaPortable\OperaPortableOneUse.exe is the location of the browser executable (in my case Opera portable oneuse).

Save the file as BrowserStart.bat, than double click on it and your browser will open inside Sanboxie.

Browser close batch

Open a text file and type (or copy/paste) the following 2 lines:

"C:\Program Files\Sandboxie\Start.exe" /terminate
"C:\Program Files\Sandboxie\Start.exe" delete_sandbox_silent

The first line close any program that runs in Sanboxie, the second nuke all  the data in it. Save the file as BrowserEnd.bat, than double click on it and your Sandboxie browser session and all the related browser and downloaded files will be nuked.