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Sophos is excited to announce that we are making Sandboxie a free tool, with plans to transition it to an open source tool.
This new evolution of Sandboxie is one we are enthusiastic about, but that does not mean this was an easy decision to make. Sandboxie has never been a significant component of Sophos’ business, and we have been exploring options for its future for a while.
Frankly, the easiest and least costly decision for Sophos would have been to simply end of life Sandboxie. However, we love the technology too much to see it fade away. More importantly, we love the Sandboxie community too much to do that. The Sandboxie user base represents some of the most passionate, forward thinking, and knowledgeable members of the security community and we didn’t want to let you down.
After thoughtful consideration we decided that the best way to keep Sandboxie going was to give it back to its users – transitioning it to an open source tool. We will release more information about the open source project as we continue to work on the details.
Until the open source transition is completed we have decided to make Sandboxie completely free. We have included a FAQ below with more information. We will continue to update this post as additional details become available.
Sandboxie FAQ
How do I get a free license? What features are included?
Sandboxie currently uses a license key to activate and grant access to premium features only available to paid customers (as opposed to those using a free version). We have modified the code and have released an updated free version that does not restrict any features. In other words, the new free license will have access to all the features previously only available to paid customers.
What if I have time left on my current Sandboxie license?
Regardless of how much time might be left on your existing Sandboxie license, in order to receive the latest updates customers with currently valid license keys will also need to install the latest unrestricted free version . This will ensure you have access to all Sandboxie features and are using the most up-to-date version of the product.
What if I currently do not have a Sandboxie license?
Simply download the unrestricted, free version. No current or previous license is required.
When will Sandboxie be released as open source?
We are investigating making Sandboxie open source, however we are still working through the details and timeline. We will update this FAQ when we know more.
What license agreement will apply to my existing, paid licenses? Will the same agreement apply to the unrestricted, free version that will be made available?
The license agreement under which you originally obtained the paid licenses to Sandboxie will continue to apply to those paid licenses until the expiration of the applicable license term. A new license agreement will apply to licenses of the new unrestricted, free version of Sandboxie made available for download.
An update EULA can be found here: https://www.sandboxie.com/EndUserLicenseAgreement
Will customer support still be available?
As part of our transition to a free and potentially open source product, Sandboxie support will become community based. The community will include developers directly involved with Sandboxie.
Thanks for releasing Sandboxie as freeware instead of just scrapping the product!
Thanks! /Sam
So that's how Sandboxie dies.
I saw this dozens of times, a passionate developer creates a great tool, it becomes superpopular, and eventually some corpernicious entity takes interest in it, takes it over and destroys it. Although it's usually Adobe.
Anyway, I saw that now this shows up when you try to download the "new" Sandboxie:
Due to requirements of the U.S. government, export compliance is now mandatory when downloading our software. Complete the form to proceed with your download.
At first I thought, "what the hell is that garbage", and then I read a few headlines about it: "Sophos creates racist filters", " Sophos: If You'd Like A Copy Of Our Free AV Software, You'll Need To Prove You're Not A Terrorist", "Want to download free AV software? Don't have a Muslim name"...
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/07/sophos_anti_muslim_name_filter/
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150807/06265231879/sophos-if-youd-like-copy-our-free-av-software-youll-need-to-prove-youre-not-terrorist.shtml?threaded=false&sp=1
Well, great start!
In reply to John Borsky:
Um, have you read and accepted > https://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/downloads/eula.aspx
Have you read ... for example > https://www.bakerlaw.com/webfiles/Litigation/2016/Brief/09-01-2016-Schwechter-Brief.pdf
So Sophos, you bought sandboxie to TERMINATE IT?
What about the fortune i paid for a lifetime license?
That was not cheap.
Who cares if you will make open source after you assassinate this crap that doesnt even work correctly with latest windows updates?
You bought sandboxie! Then you got hacked, removed the forums and further developement for more than half a year!
You should not buy a decent working project to terminate it.
So Sandboxie is not a significant part of your income? THATS BECAUSE YOU DID NOT UPGRADE THE INTERFACE THAT IS STILL ARCAIC.
Sandboxie is a must have software that beats other similar products.
WHY THE HELL YOU BUY TO RUIN IT WITH YOUR BAD MANAGEMENT?
In reply to carl COBAIN:
Seriously?? I never cease to be impressed with the type of people exist out there.... I mean seriously you give a new vision on the term of trolling. You remind me of that other guy (or maybe you with a different username?) who was so angry with the problem a few months back and who from his writings was so obvious that was getting profit by exploiting lifetime license. I won't get into your game and try a reasoning respond to your trolling (and if it's not a trolling you have much more serious issues)
If all who were getting the hacked version (but as well complain on this forum...) paid for it I guess it would have been profitable/provide the money so Sophos would hire specialized staff for it if that's the problem. If they proceed with open source decision which I don't see why they won't (well maybe posts like the above can motivate them to change their mind....) that's the best outcome if they are not able/not profitable to keep the product stable. Hopefully it will have a future in the open source community
Long live the trolls! (or maybe not)
Be glad that sophos does what they do, otherwise you would be stuck for all eternity with that "archaic interface".
While this sort of tool is a must have for advanced users, advanced users are apparently to few to justify founding further development.
With sandboxie becoming open source people like me will be able to make changes to it and to maintain the development, including possibly a new interface.
Cheers
David X.
First off all, your tone is completley unnaceeptable.
Secondly, Sophos bought Invinvicia (who bought it off the original author TZUK)
Invincia had MANY products, some may have been merged into Sophos products or rebranded. Not all companies IP's that have been bought or merged necesarrily make it to the new company.
Products get retired all the time and lifetime license does not mean they have to support the product for YOUR lifetime but the lifetime of the PRODUCT. Sophos made a business decision that when they bought Invincia they decided they did not want to the sandboxie product.
They could have at that second removed the program and closed the website and there was nothing you could have done.
It's like if you buy a product and it's got a 10 year warranty on it and the manufactuer goes bust then that 10 year warranty is not worth the paper it's written on.
I use sandboxie on and off since 2006 due to some design decisions rather off than on,
so sandboxie now going open source and giving me the opportunity to change it to work the way I want it to is like a Dream come true.
Lets all hope they will soon release the source codes to the public.
@Argos A
@carl COBAIN:
Regarding trolling... I agree with Argos A. I, too, paid for a lifetime license. Worthless now.
I have to wonder if Sophos's plan is to discontinue the ability to use sandboxie's licensed product in favor of their own "new and improved" version.
I came to sandboxie today because someone asked if sandboxie was available for android, and I only just now learned of this turn of events.
Today is a sad day for me.
In reply to Teresa Anderson:
Teresa Anderson @Argos A @carl COBAIN: Regarding trolling... I agree with Argos A. I, too, paid for a lifetime license. Worthless now. I have to wonder if Sophos's plan is to discontinue the ability to use sandboxie's licensed product in favor of their own "new and improved" version. I came to sandboxie today because someone asked if sandboxie was available for android, and I only just now learned of this turn of events. Today is a sad day for me.
If you have to wonder, is because you did not even read what they said.
You dont need key anymore, they will discontinued and will release the code, anyone can use the last version without license.
If you did not even understand this, no point hoping you to understand legal contract principles.
I already paid for the key, years ago. Now they give away what they no longer support. Oohh. Thanks.
In reply to sand boxie2:
sand boxie2 First off all, your tone is completley unnaceeptable. Secondly, Sophos bought Invinvicia (who bought it off the original author TZUK) Invincia had MANY products, some may have been merged into Sophos products or rebranded. Not all companies IP's that have been bought or merged necesarrily make it to the new company. Products get retired all the time and lifetime license does not mean they have to support the product for YOUR lifetime but the lifetime of the PRODUCT. Sophos made a business decision that when they bought Invincia they decided they did not want to the sandboxie product. They could have at that second removed the program and closed the website and there was nothing you could have done. It's like if you buy a product and it's got a 10 year warranty on it and the manufactuer goes bust then that 10 year warranty is not worth the paper it's written on.
Noone got busted, kid. And we are not talking about warranty.
Sophos is not bankrupted, and i hope EVERYONE HERE KNOWS that you can demand refund.
It seems i see only marxist people answering me, people that were alphabetized using social-construct method that makes them unable to think with logic.
Sophos did buy a gold product that was raised with some lifetime licenses, it is a must have software. After some discussion in my group, we made a question about if they had to chose between sandboxie and an antivirus, 80% of votes chose to have sandboxie only.
It does beat Comodo and similars.
The question is: DID THE COMPANY BROKE? IS IT BANKRUPTED?
If the answer is no, they must return all values paid to them.
It is independent of marxists "own opinion". It is logical and it is a legal contractual right.
Even on STEAM GAMES, lets say, RUST, people that did play 5 years are getting full refunded because they dropped support for linux and did stop selling to that OS.
They paid hoping to have forever. If the owner removes that from them, must pay, unless they bankrupt and cant pay.
A lifetime license is more than that.
They must pay even people that got screwed because of their bad management getting hacked, removing the activation from people that paid, even when they posted "it is all right, download here on forum links to activate" and that didnt work...
Sophos is probably one of those companies that went leftist and because of that, ruined all their actions and profit, since all leftist people are worried about politically correct and not about results. They worry about HOW you spoke and not WHAT you spoke.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/20/sophos_microsoft_patch_tuesday_boot_hang/
Look. Same thing they did with sandboxie. Irresponsibly telling users to downgrade satefy upgrades.
What about this? Muslin named people that bought products can not download? WHAT???
Well, i dont like muslims, but i must say, that is too much even for dealing with them.
We all saw how they removed sandboxie from the page, in an amateur way, moved the forums, and gave no satisfaction about what was happening for months.
How can a huge company do that? Because of MAD MANAGEMENT. Period.
So, i am not trolling, leftist kids.
I am speaking about legal rights.
To the guy that spoke about "oh i can make now a great interface".... This is analphabetism too.
I said that software keeps evolving, it was an indie one, made by one person, and a sucessfull one. What is to be expected is a huge company, after buying, improve things like interface. Update it. THAT IS GOOD PROJECT MANAGEMENT. If you do not do that for more than 15 years, of course, without improving anything, program dies. Most of you kids did not even know sandboxie is from 2004. 15 years without interface improvement? You keep developing a software made from um lonely guy from the age of telephone internet dial up and do not improve GUI functionality? That is BAD MANAGEMENT. Of course without that, profit will sink. People want easiness of use. I did not ask if a random guy will improve the gui with an open source code. If he cant even understand the logic in arguments, and responding something that has nothing to do with what i said, he wont be able. I did not pay YOU kid, believing in your project. Sophos could get tons of money if they had good management.
Even in linux forums, you can find people saying they wont install linux being a "deal breaker" if they do not have a sandboxie similar solution.
https://forums.linuxmint.com/search.php?keywords=sandboxie
Try to search for ANY similar product in any linux forums. Linux users that lives insulting windows complaining they have no similar acceptable solution for a decade.
In all internet, when you search about sandbox products, sandboxie is in number one place.
All other huge companies that puts big teams developing similar things didnt reach sandboxie sucess.
So, it is, NO DOUBT, BAD MANAGEMENT.
So sophos, are you broke? No? So you must pay everyone.
You must pay people that bought anual licenses, since you did not even plan to finish, you just got hacked and decided you woudnt spend money fixing not even the paying system and downloads. If things were like this in real world, tell me wich company would present fast fixes? They woudnt need it.
Noone is trolling here, kids.
Plus, i have more than 500 k subscribers, i have more people listening to me than most of you have people on your cities.
I will just make a video showing why people must never buy anything from sophos, and you will see the reason why you must respect consumers. It is not because of some small number of people sueing you. If it because of value of company mark and name.
Be sure i will profit more with this video than my license value, and you will lose a lot more than giving people back their money.
You will learn about company posture. Something you do not have and that will sink you.
> 2004. ... from the age of telephone internet dial up
I don't know under what rock you lived back then....
already in 2001 I had cable internet with 300k and i had in 2002 DSL with 512k, dial up internet is soooo 1998...
Making a better UI for an existing back end is trivial, see my latest weekend project: https://github.com/DavidXanatos/TaskExplorer
You will not force sophos to give you your money for a life time Licence back, and you will not force them to keep maintaining an economically not viable project.
Your only chance to see sandboxie live on is it becoming open source and getting maintained by the community.
Sandboxie always was a niche, and imho always will be, users are dumb they want simple solutions like BS AntiVirus/inernet security suites that do the thinking for them, not advanced tools that require configuration and thinking and taking responsibility for once own security.
Sandboxie is a tool for experts and as such will always be only relevant to a minority of users.
If you want Sandboxie to have at least a chance for a future I would suggest you quit wining and leave the subject.
This has been a bit of a shock to me. All this having to create a new account (with odd demands from a US site for my personal UK details) along with everything else that's happening.
Frankly, for now I would just like to know if I can safely keep using my current version until this all settles down a bit more, as I'm a little worried that the overwriting of my current version with the new Free version might bugger something up.
I have (had) a 'free-for-life' paid version and have been running v5.30 perfectly well up to this point.
In reply to David Xanatos:
David Xanatos > 2004. ... from the age of telephone internet dial up I don't know under what rock you lived back then.... already in 2001 I had cable internet with 300k and i had in 2002 DSL with 512k, dial up internet is soooo 1998...
Like i said, no point talking to leftists.
https://www.pewinternet.org/chart/broadband-vs-dial-up-adoption-over-time/
As you can see... IN USA, broadband only passed dial up in numbers after 2005.
And even if you WERE RIGHT, that does not change my point kid.
When someone thinks that correcting a data error makes them take down the main argument...
It is someone that knows nothing about syllogism. Well, you corrected wrongly anyway. Time to go back to Bobby's World...
So, 2004 WAS dial up age. Understood? Period.
What you said? Is just an argumentation error of low iq people.
Dicto Simpliciter - Secundum Quid. It is to destroy the general rule using an isolated example.
https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Secundum%20Quid.html
You just confirmed what i said, it is EASY to change interface. And THAT is the first thing they should do and didnt do with the project they bought.
Bad management. Mr Peter LAMMER bought too many companies and did not allocate people correctly to the projects.
The homepage presents NOTHING about the product. They did not even chang the 2004 drawings about how it works. Worst, they removed.
https://www.sandboxie.com/HowItWorks
Show me ONE, JUST ONE 2019 product that has the same presentation as 2004 in the marketing giving profit.
That is a 2004 solo programmer presentation made in PAINT.EXE about his great work. Not some product presentation and interface to be in market by a huge company 15 years later.
If i offer 50 bucks for a kid in discord to make a page in wix.com for sandboxie, in a few hours i would have something 10 times better than that.
PERIOD. If you say they didnt kill the product with bad management you have a 2 digits IQ.