GreenBorder Pro: A quick test

Since Jim Fulton was kind enough to leave a comment on my previous GreenBorder post, I thought I really should try it out. The download was trouble free, so was the installation. Quick and easy, but it did require a reboot. The reboot requirement is understandable though, after all the purpose of the application is to isolate Internet Explorer from the OS, something even Microsoft has had problems with doing. So far, it looks like it's very easy to use, and I haven't noticed any slowdown in Internet Explorer at all. My tests were done with Internet Explorer 7.0 - Beta 2, which I was certain would not like being sandboxed with GreenBorder. I was wrong. GreenBorder isolates IE7 as well, and I have not seen a single error related to GreenBorder since I installed it. It works just like before, just safer and isolated. You even get a green border (duh) around the protected IE instance, in fact thats even customizable. You can have GreenBorder place a Yellow border on your IE. That doesn't make much sense, but at least it's a nice way to let you know that the IE instance you are running is protected by the GreenBorder software. All in all, I'm impressed. I've taken a few screenshots, as usual, and they are available here The only thing I would like to see improved, is the centralized management. Currently GreenBorder offers administrators a way to centrally manage settings, and prevent end users from changing those settings. As far as I can tell, this is done by creating a settings file, and then pointing the loclly installed GreenBorder instance to it. That works in small environments, but in larger settings I would love to see GreenBorder actually offer Group Policy templates and administration via GPO and Active Directory. Well done GreenBorder, you proved me wrong.

Posted by Christian Mohn aka h0bbel