I don't understand exactly how it works but it seems like your internet surfing would take place in virtual memory so nasty little bugs can't get into your actual hard drive. This was recommended to me by a really neat newsletter I get that tells me about all sorts of free software and computing tweaks. If anyone is interested, here's a link to their archive and I'm sure there is a way to sign up there:

Support Alert Newsletter - Free Edition Back Issues | Gizmo's Tech Support Alert

I have never used one before myself though I know I have heard the term mentioned a couple of times. I would like to know more about it but sometimes Gizmo ends up being more techy than not (and for this I need "not"). I will keep my peepers out for anything I can get to and maybe we can come up with something decent on this one.

It was too technically explained for me to fully grasp, too, but I love the newsletter. Did you get the email yesterday that the newsletter is merging with another Windows newsletter? Sounds like we'll get even more information about free software but with the added bonus of Windows tips and tweaks to go with it. I'm looking forward to reading the merged newsletters.

That's quite interesting, though I don't pretend to understand all of the article (I am more of a user and less of an understander). It does sound like it would be useful for certain types of browsing or downloading.

It doesn't sound too complicated because you do it through a utility rather than having to handle the permissions yourself. Quick sand is a better analogy-basically anything that tries to get outside of the browser sinks in the quicksand and cannot reach your machine to do damage.