As the title says.
I'm new to this (late starter) so will appreciate suggestion, tips etc.

 

As you said Sandboxie, Comodo Firewall has its own sandbox, or the most powerful (unless you require reboot for tested installed programs) Shadow defender.

Awaiting other suggestions, I'm curious too.

 

@Dalmation, I'd also like to suggest another strategy: Please make a complete backup of your C:/ drive using good backup software. The backup software will allow you to create an emergency disk, which you can use to completely restore your C:/ system in case of malware, a frozen screen, a Trojan infection, etc.

In 30 years, I've had about 4-5 viruses, two instances of a frozen screen, and one polyphonic virus that ate files. With the backup, I was able to completely restore my system within 1.5 hours using the emergency disk. I've never had a virus infection from the sister site. All downloads were clean; it would be pretty stupid if crackers and uploaders were to ruin their business model with viruses and Trojans.

Dubious websites are a completely different story. You can get infected as soon as you visit them and catch a boot-resistant trojan, which you can delete, but it will reappear the next time you boot up. Furthermore, new viruses and trojans are not detected by antivirus software. In addition, cybercrime is a huge business with high growth rates. Users often have weak passwords, carelessly open file attachments, and frequent porn and other illegal websites.

If you download from a source other than our sister site, Sanboxie is a good precaution because if you unpack and run it in the closed container, nothing can escape from the container.

 

Kasm is the kind of sandbox I'd look into in 2026

https://kasm.com/app-isolation

principle is, you can have a virtual machine and stream individual sanxboxed apps as web interface or remote sessions to your client device

 

Agreed, good wisdom. I usually fresh install every 6 mo. then image with a decent backup app, it simplifies problems. Gotta virus/non boot drive? Reboot to usb, re-install from the image, works a treat. (rescuezilla-so simple a cave man). btw, win enterprise is best use imho.

Another great utility iso: WinPE 11-10-8 Sergei Strelec 2026.01.11 lots of toys.
Peace.

 

I use Sandboxie-Plus, which think is great, even the free one although from memory you do need to register it, which is not hard/bad but worth mentioning.
The Windows one is a bit different in that it kind of boots up another instance of Windows in Windows, which takes a longer to load compared with Sandboxie-Plus which is immediate, and loading files in and out of it isn't as straight-forward as the Sandboxie right-click context menu.
Also with the Windows one, once you close the Sandbox everything is deleted, which is fine but Sandboxie allows you to keep the files in the Sandbox for as long as you like. Sandboxie also allows you to create multiple sandboxes.
Sandboxing stuff is definitely a good idea, I like running an installer in Sandboxie-Plus just to see all the locations where it's installing files on your system (you can explore the sandbox just like in file explorer) even for legit stuff.
If you just want to run a keygen from a source you're not sure of once in a blue moon the Windows one will probably be fine but if you're doing stuff regularly then Sandboxie-Plus is the way to go.
Either way, whether you sandbox or not — for the love of dog, backup your stuff!