A New Garden Fence

In "The Garden Fence", I wrote that the best way to protect your garden is to fence it in. Today I found a new fence that appears interesting. Malware researchers are known to use various "virtual machine" software programs to protect their operating system when investigating the latest bugs. Now there is a software that acts as a fence around your browser, GreenBorder:

"Using virtualization combined with strong security, GreenBorder's patented technology creates an impenetrable protective barrier that keeps all interactions with a web site and its associated content and programs away from the internal parts of the PC (including the operating system and applications) as well as the user's drives and files. GreenBorder Pro prevents malicious code encountered online or embedded in downloaded content from silently installing; in addition, the software keeps all files and system resources invisible, protecting them from attacks and preventing them from being remotely accessed, modified, or controlled."

The only drawback to GreenBorder is the subscription cost. At $50 per year, it will be out of the price range for many casual netcitizens. The initial year is currently free for the first 10,000 downloads. Anyone who has paid a tech shop to purge their system of computer viruses will recognize that, in comparison, $50 is a small price to pay -- if it works, that is. It only works with Internet Explorer. I have not tested GreenBorder but wonder if "virtual surfing" will be the common method for web surfing in the future; that is, until the malware writers find a way to get through the virtual fences as well.