It’s a sign of the times that simply avoiding clicking suspicious emails and visiting only trusted, known websites is no longer adequate to avoid drive by downloads of spyware, keystroke loggers, and other malware that could seriously compromise your computer, identity, and financial security. Zone Alarm , a unit of Checkpoint, is introducing a new way to virtualize your browser so theoretically nothing bad hits your internal machine.

The new tool, ForceField, was designed on the assumption that safe browsing practices are no longer adequate for protecting your computer. For instance, there have been publicized incidents involving legitimate websites such as the Bank of India and the NFL Superbowl. And, for the some reason, links listed on Google may not be totally safe either.

In these cases, you visit a site that you would otherwise consider safe, but end up hitting as compromised version, with the result being a drive-by download of malware. In such cases, blacklists such as those maintained by Microsoft for Internet Explorer (where the browser first checks to see if the site is kosher), can not stay up to date, given the rate at which legitimate sites can get infected.

ForceField takes an approach that borrows from virtualization and firewall technologies. When you boot up the browser, it loads a virtual sandbox where all your browsing is done. When you interact through the browser, the virtual image intercepts all actions and, acting like a firewall, doesn't allow anything naughty to happen.

For now, Zone Alarm is releasing an individual version that installs to your machine. Admittedly, that doesn’t cover the scenario where you access the Internet through another machine. For now, Zone Alarm offers free trial versions as a workaround: in the future, they will develop a more full-formed solution that will follow you wherever go.

Zone Alarm’s approach is an interesting step in the unending cat-and-mouse-game that Internet security has become.

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