Step-By-Step: Set Antivirus Software for Maximum Protection

It's dangerous out there on the wild and woolly frontier of the Internet. Whether you have an always-on cable or DSL connection or you use dial-up, you're on a road that can deliver all sorts of nasties directly to your PC through downloads or e-mail attachments. Virus writers are becoming increasingly clever. Antivirus software is your absolutely essential first line of defense--if you don't have antivirus software, you need to get it now.

A wide variety of antivirus software is available. For a detailed look at how the top seven packages stack up, see the feature story "Protect Your PC" in the July 2002 issue.

The programs PC World has evaluated all provide an assortment of protection features, but each application sets its own defaults during installation. If you leave those out-of-the-box settings as is, or if you tinker with a few in an attempt to improve system performance, your PC may be unprotected in some crucial areas.

We've come up with a list of key settings that will help you ensure your PC is fully protected. All antivirus packages are different; some arrange options on easy-to-find summary screens, some bury options deep in submenus, and (to further complicate matters) some call virtually identical features by different names. The examples shown here are from Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2003 and ETrust's EZ Antivirus. We can't show you the exact steps for every package, but the types of settings and the options you'll need to consider are similar. After you've found and enabled these settings, your PC will be on high alert.