On my XP Pro SP3 machine, I upgraded to Avast 6 (Free) that now has the “AutoSandbox” feature, which I left on and at default settings (i.e., “AutoSandbox mode: Ask Me”)
Now my Firefox session is appearing with a red border around it, and since I have the non-free Avast version on my Win7 machine I recognize that this means sandboxing/virtualization is happening, as I use it there.
Avast 6 Free did this without asking me to sandbox it, there are no right-click context controls to turn it off, and turning off AutoSandbox does not remove the red border.
The sandbox in the Free version is just a basic one without the whole functions of the paid versions.
You haven’t so much possibilities in the settings as in the non-free versions of avast.
However, if they are going to release a major new feature like this, they need to know that people won’t take too kindly at Avast suddenly virtualizing a process without warning, and with no way to easily release it.
I had to turn the feature back on, specify an exclude path for Firefox, turn the feature back off, and reboot before it would release its virtualization grip on Firefox. The desktop icon still has the little orange lock symbol, though.
I’m leaving it off because I’m not sure what it will lock onto next without asking me.
–Update: The problem came back, despite having the AutoSandbox feature turned off. I had to end up uninstalling both Firefox and Avast 6 and reinstall them in reverse order to get Avast 6 to release it’s grip on Firefox. The AutoSandbox feature is now off, and Firefox is still running unvirtualized, so I’ll post back if the problem returns. If it does, it’s goodbye Avast Free for a while until they fix the problem.
The problem with Firefox being stuck virtualized is that you can’t apply any updates to it or its plug-ins which occur frequently. The updates just vanish when you close Firefox, which is consistent, of course, with a virtualized environment. And sometimes you need to turn off virtualization in a web browser in special circumstances to get something to work correctly.
