Sophos this week removed the license check and activation requirements from Sandboxie, essentially making the isolation tool free.
The move, the cybersecurity firm says, is the first step it makes toward releasing the sandbox-based isolation program open source.
Initially developed by Ronen Tzur, Sandboxie was acquired by endpoint protection company Invincea in 2013. In February 2017, Sophos acquired Invincea, and Sandboxie became part of its portfolio.
With a focus on securing endpoints, network, email, and mobile systems, as well as on providing unified threat management, Sophos never looked at Sandboxie as a significant component of its business.
In fact, the company has been exploring options for its future for a while, and says that simply ending Sandboxie completely would have been the easiest and least costly decision.
“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,” the company explains.
Thus, the company decided to give Sandboxie back to its users by making it an open source tool.
Until the transition to open source is completed, however, Sophos is making all restricted features of Sandboxie completely free.
The first version to remove said restrictions is 5.31.4, which can be downloaded from its dedicated website. The tool is compatible with Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, but not with Windows XP. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the application are available.
Sophos will provide additional information on the evolution of the open source project as it brushes up the details.
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