When it comes to your security, no web browser is perfect - and no malware app is going to catch everything. I came across BufferZone Free a few weeks ago and have been running it since, and I’m pretty impressed.
BufferZone adds another layer of protection to your browser by setting up a sandbox (an isolated “virtual directory” on your hard drive). As Trustware puts it, the program “transparently redirects modifications in your PC to a virtual, isolated environment, so that unauthorized modifications cannot be applied to your actual PC.” Malicious apps can’t write changes to your actual system files or registry - only BufferZone’s virtualized versions. Anything you download - temp files, images, executables, you name it - gets sandboxed. Why is that a big deal?
Well, it only takes a split second for a malicious app to burrow its way into the deep, dark crevices of your operating system.
How does BufferZone help?
The sandbox keeps these nasties from going resident on your system and gives your malware defenses time to obliterate them before they can cause any harm. If I click on a link to a key generator, the hosting website redirects me to another page that spawns a browser hijacker installer. If that happens, BufferZone neatly puts it in the virtualized directory, and my anti-virus software kicks in and nukes the threat within two seconds.
To top it all off, there’s no appreciable difference in the rendering speed of your browser and no real impact on resources. On my system, the hit was 0% on the CPU and about 9MB of memory.
Slick. Very slick.
The program comes in both free and paid versions (which offers customization and protection of multiple browsers), but I’ll only talk about the free one here.
Download the 9MB .msi file and install it, and BufferZone sets up a protected, virtualized directory in c:\virtual\untrusted\. All activity from your selected browser will now be redirected here and isolated from your “real” operating system.
Before I go any further with this, I’ve got to tell you to NOT knowingly visit any sites that are likely to infect your computer. You’re asking for trouble. I was, too, but I had to find out whether this app was the real deal or not. I also tested BufferZone Free on IE7 from a bare Windows XP SP2 install with no other patches applied.
To put BufferZone through the paces, I decided to go on a little jaunt around some of the most nefarious sites I’m familiar with. I headed over to a keygen site, did a few searches, and watched BufferZone spring into action as it popped up several alerts for items that were landing in the sandbox. The beauty of it: my anti-virus software caught every single one of them and removed them with ease. I surfed around carelessly for a while longer and exited Internet Explorer at which point some other evildoers tried to invade my system, but BufferZone and Avast! once again tag-teamed them into submission.
After a reboot, I ran a full scan with Ad-Aware and HijackThis and couldn’t find any traces of anything remotely malicious. Wow. I’m impressed!
Here’s the kicker. Even in the free version, the app will protect not only your browser, but any process spawned by the browser. Download an attachment from your Gmail account and launch it with Word, and Word automatically inherits the BufferZone protection. This is huge; even if your webmail provider automatically scans attachments, no scan is perfect.
The program worked beautifully in my testing and it’s footprint wasn’t even noticable. For a free application with such terrific security potential, BufferZone Free is definitely worth a download. If you’re still not convinced, try out Trustware’s proof of concept.
If you’ve tried BufferZone, what do you think of it? Got something better that you’d recommend? Let’s hear about it!
(by) Lee Mathews is a blogger who writes to share downloads, links, and tech advice with other slightly frustrated people at Unsightful.com.
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Filed Under: Browser ¦ Cool Software Apps
Tags: anti-spyware, anti-virus, browser tips, safer browsing, security, virtualization
Yeah - I have to agree. Programs like this are very nice, indeed.
I’ve not personally done much with BufferZone, but I have played with SandboxIE.
While I am not very familiar with BufferZone, this article suggested that BufferZone only protected the browser and processes spawned off of it. However, it is my understanding that, while offering a similar style of protection, SandboxIE is not limited to any one program (browser, or otherwise).
Perhaps its also worth checking out!
Unfortunately, the free version of Sandboxie is very limited….And if you run firefox with any intense addons - like scribefire - it’ll probably not like that at all. I tested it on a rig and got “the file is too big” messages.
…oh, and I just went to download BufferZone and the links on their site are dead (all of them - for browsers, P2P, and for IM):
“Not Found
The requested URL http:// was not found on this server.”
I have asked Lee to check on this and see why the programs are not available. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible with a status update.
please do, I wanna protect my computer from malware thats keeps getting to my comp.
Apologies gang, the link was moved…Updated here: http://trustware.com/virtualization/freewb.html
Don’t directly click on the link as it won’t work. Instead right-click on the link and click “save as” or “save target as” (whatever it says in your right click menu) and save the file to your computer. The file is a “msi” file.
maybe im missing something, I cant get it to work, I still get the same problem as before
Works fine on my end.
It looks like its still not up, I tried your idea, and I download a program that doesn’t take up any space. If your try to open it, it give you an error (something about windows not being able to open the program)
I tried too and still is not working.
Hey gang, I put it up in my SkyDrive here: download bufferzone.
Right click and save target as, it should go right to the MSI!
McAfee Site Advisor gives a yellow warning concerning downloads that don’t appear to be available on their site. Comments suggest it’s on the up and up but maybe it’s wise to use caution until they get their act together on their site.
How do I get this to install on Vista? I got it to download, and tried it from multiple sites, but when I go to open it, it says that it can’t install and I need to verify that it uses a genuine Windows Installer. Any suggestions?
It also shows up as a McAfee SiteAdvisor “yellow” site. Any ideas on that? Hey, but thanks for all the GREAT apps and ideas. Yours is one of the two best sites on the web!!
What is the other site? Google ? :Grin:
Great stuff!
Works fine over here as well. Nifty stuff!!
New link is dead, too.
It’s NOT dead. Right-click on the link, “save as” and save the msi file to your computer. Then double-click and install.
I’ve “right-clicked” and “saved link as” to get the .msi file. Then I’ve double-clicked it and I’ve also tried “right-click” and selected INSTALL and all I get is…
…This installation package could not be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer Package.
Any ideas?
Guys, the skydrive seems to work fine…Trustware has modified their website in the time between when this post went up and now. I’ve gotta apologize, the link has been there for months, and now, suddenly, they change it. I’ll have mirrors asap, and I’m contacting Trustware now.
Now up at: This site (mine). The MSI is on Skydrive, as is a ZIP version in case that doesn’t work for you!
@Lee
We recently revamped our website, it just so happend that it went up the same day Lee was posting the article. We still have a free 30-Day trial available for users who want to give it a try.
http://www.trustware.com/index.php?id=products_home_download
We strongly encourage users to download the latest version 3.0 rather than the version that has been provided in some of the comments. 3.0 has some significant improvements and a brand new feature called the Privacy Zone, see here for details:
http://www.trustware.com/index.php?id=products_home_privacyZone
Enjoy safe browsing.
Does this mean you will no longer offer the free version?
Thomas-
Unfortunately, it sounds that way. I just got off the phone with Martin, and it sounds as though he is trying to make the Single Program version download available again. The new version does have a lot of significant improvements, hence the move to a 30-day trial. I am totally unopposed to the idea of try and buy, but it definitely is bad timing with the disappearance of the free link. As I mentioned, Skydrive still seems OK!
I tested out this older version of the software some time ago, and was overall impressed that it in fact did exactly what it says it does. It protects the system from the user.
But the problem is this… eventually you are going to end up with personal information inside of the buffer zone, and that means that is is still susceptible to viruses and attacks from downloaded programs. Really it would be better if the program flushed it self every time at boot.
Currently I’m running Ubuntu, with some windows applications running under wine, which has a similar feel. There is a mock directory and mock registry for the windows applications to use to install. The important part is that it has been shown that most viruses will not run under wine.
This product is just one more “patch” on top of a bad operating system. Download Linux, try it for 30 days and see if you ever go back.
Bradford Knowlton
http://x86v.com