I know the thread is about VPN's but another very useful software is Sandboxie, which runs your browser in a sandbox isolated from your computer files. It's free though sometimes there is a nag screen to donate, I use it all the time.

So in essence if you get a virus, it will most likely stay in the sandbox rather than you main OS files, just empty the sandbox and the virus will be gone.

I always download the classic version of Sandboxie rather than Sandboxie plus as I understand it better.

https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie

Once you have it installed right click on a browser and select Run Sandboxed.

The browser will open, will probably take a little while longer to load than normal, once it does you will notice a yellow border around the edges of the browser to let you know its sandboxed.

You can download files as normal but they won't be shown on your normal windows explorer, you simply right click on the Sandboxie icon in the taskbar and select Default Box then Windows explorer that will open with the Sandboxed version.

You will find your files there and copy and paste into your normal windows folders.

Usually Sandboxie will give you a prompt to recover a file to your normal windows folder after downloading, so either of these two options.

Its great software and thanks to Musocity for making me aware of it in the past.

Last edited by musiclover; 02/08/25 01:42 PM.
Musiclover

My music https://www.youtube.com/user/donegalprideofall

Windows 10 (64bit) M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Band in a Box 2025, Cubase 14, Cakewalk and far too many VST plugins that I probably don't need or will ever use smile