Sandboxie is a great software, which prevents malware or any program to make permanent changes on your PC, by isolating it from the rest of the OS.
But it is not without its shortcomings. One of its many annoyances, is to integrate well with Firefox. Let's say you have Mozilla Firefox running in a sandbox, and you want to open a link sent to you in an IM application, like Telegram or Skype, etc.
By default, Sandboxie will not open the link in the sandboxed Firefox browser. Instead, it will open a second instance of Firefox, which is un-sandboxed, ala the normal vulnerable version. Shouldn't Sandboxie prevent opening a new window, instead of opening a new tab in the sandboxed browser? This flaw defeats the very purpose of Sandboxie, don't you agree?
How to make Sandboxie always open links in sandboxed Firefox browser?
It's actually quite easy, and we found the fix on Sandboxie's forums. But it was not well worded for the new user. That's why we are here to help.
1. First, right click on the Sandboxie icon on the system tray.
2. Select the option which says "Show Window".
3. Click on "Sandbox" in the toolbar, then on "DefaultBox" (or whatever Sandbox you have). [refer to the first screenshot of this article]
4. Select "Resource Access" > "Window Access" (from the left side bar).
5. Click on the "Add program" button on the right side bar of the pop-up window.
6. Select "Firefox.exe" (which is the web browser's executable).
7. Click on the "Add" button (the second option on the right side), and in the Add Resource Name text field, add the following command.
FirefoxMessageWindow
8. Click on Apply and Ok, and exit Sandboxie and your browser, and restart both applications.
Try opening a link from outside the sandbox and it should open it in the sandboxed Firefox browser. We tested this on the free version of Sandboxie, and it works fine. So you don't need the paid (registered version) for this basic feature.
This also works with other variants of Firefox such as WaterFox. Of course you will need to include the specific EXE of the browser, for that to work.