I made a ‘paranoid PC’ to dodge hackers. Its secret? An obscure Windows feature

In the 1990s, a colleague took me to “Snake Alley,” Taipei’s red-light district, for a night of drinking with “entertainers” and some of their very muscled, serious friends. A good time was had by all, fortunately. Still, I was young, dumb, and lucky that I didn’t end up in any trouble.

Some parts of the internet are like that, too. If you think you’ll be potentially surfing into a risky internet neighborhood — a knockoff shopping site, a little-known streaming service, or somewhere you’re just not entirely sure is legit — and you have a spare laptop lying around, you can always repurpose it to become what I call a “Paranoid PC”: a laptop hardened for additional privacy and security.

In my case, I was able to do it for “free.” But it does require a version of Windows 10 or 11 that’s not that common, and an existing VPN subscription. I am also not claiming that this PC configuration will protect you from any and all malware and prying eyes, but it will certainly help.

Further reading: If you don’t use these PC security essentials, you’re begging to be hacked

Putting together a Paranoid PC

• What you’ll need: a VPN subscription and a laptop (16GB of RAM preferred) running Windows 10/11 Pro

I’ve repurposed an older laptop to create my Paranoid PC. You can use your day-to-day PC for this purpose, but it also potentially exposes you to greater risks if anything bad slips through the security screen. In any case, it’s a good idea in almost any case to use an account without administrator access for additional security, and possibly a local account at that.

To Get Sandbox, you'll need this

Windows 11 Pro

Price When Reviewed: 69,99 Euro

Best Prices Today: 49,99 € at PC-WELT Software-Shop – Windows 11 Home | 69,99 € at PC-WELT Software-Shop – Windows 11 Pro

The key, though, is to have a PC set up with Windows 10 or 11 Pro because of a feature it offers: Windows Sandbox.

Sandbox has been around for five years (!), and I still feel like it’s one of the most underappreciated features within Windows. Sandbox creates a virtualized environment with minimal setup; essentially, it’s a Windows PC within your PC, protected by a “moat” that isolates it from your PC. Once you close Sandbox, the entire “PC” and anything it has within it is erased, permanently. That includes any malware that may have wormed its way in.

Sandbox is an optional feature within Windows 10 or 11 Pro, and to access it you’ll need to turn it on. To enable it, you’ll need to go to the Windows Features control panel, which you can find by searching for Turn Windows features on and off within Windows Search. (We have a deeper dive into Windows Sandbox, here.)

Once you enable Sandbox, Windows will update itself with the appropriate features, reboot, and open up Windows again. You’ll need to launch Windows Sandbox via the Start menu or the Search box.

Sandbox essentially creates a PC environment within a window, but it’s a generic PC. You don’t need to log in, and please don’t! We want this PC to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible.

PCWorld

You can expand Sandbox to the dimensions of your screen, or leave it windowed. It’s up to you.

Install the Brave browser

I’ve argued in the past that Sandbox provides a powerful level of security and privacy, just by its lonesome. But we’re going to go further. What Sandbox allows you to do is use the built-in version of Microsoft Edge to download other software. And while Microsoft Edge is no slouch in the privacy department, we’re going to use Brave’s browser to provide an additional level of privacy and security.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Brave started off as a very privacy-oriented browser, and still is. Its reputation has soured a bit because of its ties to cryptocurrencies, but it’s still a good choice to download for surfing the deeper reaches of the web. If you want to use another browser, though, (or just Edge) you can. Just make sure to configure it the way you want, adding any plugins you choose. I still wouldn’t log in or otherwise identify yourself, however.

Install a VPN

I use a VPN because, well, it’s none of your business. And that’s the whole point. VPNs can be used to access content in other countries, avoid the eyes of authoritarian governments, privately chat with friends, and so on. It’s akin to locking your door and drawing your shades, and most people do that in the real world.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Running a VPN won’t necessarily protect your Sandbox PC from malware, but it does add an additional layer of anonymity protection. Some VPNs also include upgraded antivirus, too. (Sometimes Brave can get a tad too aggressive in blocking downloads and scripts. In that case, go ahead and use Edge to download a VPN instead.) You might be able to get away with running a VPN outside Sandbox, but just in case I installed it from within the Sandbox environment.

the best vpn we've tested

ExpressVPN

Read our rev