Sandboxes are included within some AV programs. This at least shows that it must be thought a worthwhile layer of security. Where it's difficult for signature databases to keep up with new malware, sandboxing becomes useful. No detection necessary. They just don't trust anything. True there are circumstances where a sandbox won't help but for the average home user like me, a good security measure to have.
It took quite a long time for AV programs to include sandboxing I believe, whereas Sandboxie has been around for a lot longer. I don't know about the popular AV programs' sandboxes but I tried Avast's and Kaspersy's a while back and thought them not as good as Sandboxie. Maybe they are better now.
I tried Comodo's Virtual Kiosk (version 6 I think) this seemed to work well but I had to turn off the automatic sandboxing because it would sandbox trusted files or programs without asking. Stopped using Comodo for another reason in the end but might soon give the latest version a try.
One sandbox that I think can give Sandboxie some competition comes from Qihoo. Their 'Total Security' and 'Internet Security' programs both include a sandbox. It's easy to use and runs any designated program in the sandbox (including browsers). Programs can be made to start automatically sandboxed.
However, since the mentioned sandboxes haven't been around for the number of years that Sandboxie has, I wonder if they are as good. After using Qihoo's sandbox for a while, I have come back to Sandboxie. I'm still more inclined to trust this one as being the best. Certainly easy to use with its multiple sandbox option. Also, it automatically offers to save a download to the system once it has completed in the sandbox. Qihoo doesn't do that.
You can tell I'm a bit into sandboxing can't you?
