BaseShield launches a sandboxed Windows app store for third-party software

Secure by Design was a Y Combinator startup founded in the Winter 2008 batch by Patrick Swieskowski and Sascha Kuzins, two serious open-source hackers. When Microsoft opened its own online software store in November 2008, selling mostly Office, Vista, mice and keyboards, the pair concluded that packaged software was dying — and that the store replacing it should not be limited to one vendor's catalog.

Their answer, BaseShield, launched on November 25, 2008: a Windows download store where users could install and launch third-party apps with a single click. Every app ran on a virtualization layer above the operating system, so malware had less chance of infecting the machine; each program could be removed in one click while still using the full power of the PC, including 3D graphics. The launch catalog held about two dozen free, open-source titles such as Inkscape, AbiWord, Neverball, Celestia and Frets On Fire.

BaseShield began as a technology proof of concept with no settled business model; the founders expected to take a percentage of paid app sales like the iTunes App Store, and developers could submit software through a simple form. TechCrunch covered the launch the same day and the story drew an active Hacker News thread, but the coverage records no user numbers, paid catalog or later milestones — the facts stop at launch day.