In computer security, a sandbox is a is a play item for little kids, suppliers and untrusted users. This article “Secure computing” redirects here. ...

The sandbox typically provides a tightly-controlled set of resources for guest programs to run in, such as scratch space on disk and memory. Network access, the ability to inspect the host system or read from input devices is usually disallowed or heavily restricted. In this sense, sandboxes are a specific example of virtualization. Scratch space is space on the hard disk drive that is dedicated for only temporary storage. ... In computing, virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources. ...

Some examples of sandboxes are:

• Applets are self-contained programs that run in a virtual machine or scripting language interpreter that does the sandboxing. This arrangement is popular in web browsers, which use this mechanism to safely execute applets embedded in untrusted web pages. Java applets in particular are provided (at minimum) a rectangle of screen space with which to interact with the user and some persistent storage (at the user's permission).
• Jails are a special kind of resource limit imposed on programs by the operating system.
• Virtual machines emulate a complete host computer, on which an entire operating system can run. The guest operating system is sandboxed in the sense that it does not run natively on the host and can only affect it through the intermediary emulator and its effect upon shared resources, such as hard disk space.
• Application streaming solutions sandbox applications on a client machine.
• Capability systems can be thought of as a fine-grained sandboxing mechanism, in which programs have the ability to do specific things based on what capabilities (usually represented as opaque tokens) they hold.
• XAML Browser Applications are programs that can run within Microsoft Internet Explorer that have little or no access to system elements

The term "sandbox" is also used much more generally in computing to refer to a testing environment for software (including websites) and even content development; see the sandbox (software development) article for this broader usage. An applet is a software component that runs in the context of another program, for example a web browser. ... In computer science, a virtual machine is software that creates a virtualized environment between the computer platform and its operating system, so that the end user can operate software on an abstract machine. ... Scripting languages (commonly called scripting programming languages or script languages) are computer programming languages that are typically interpreted and can be typed directly from a keyboard. ... In computer science, an interpreter is a computer program that executes, or performs, instructions written in a computer programming language. ... An example of a Web browser (Internet Explorer 7) A Web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a Web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. ... A Java applet is an applet delivered in the form of Java bytecode. ... In computer science, a virtual machine is software that creates a virtualized environment between the computer platform and its operating system, so that the end user can operate software on an abstract machine. ... This article is about emulation in computer science. ... Application streaming is the new software distribution method using application virtualization. ... Capability-based security is a concept in the design of secure computing systems. ... This subsystem is a part of . ... Internet Explorer, abbreviated IE or MSIE is a web browser from Microsoft currently sold as part of Microsoft Windows. ... A sandbox is a testing (or virtual) environment that isolates untested code changes and outright experimentation from the production environment or repository, in the context of software development including web development and revision control, and by extension in web-based editing environments including wikis. ...

See also

• Sandbox (software development)
• Sandbox effect (search engines)
• Sandboxie (security software)