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As Henry Kissinger once said, "Even a paranoid has some real enemies." And anyone who uses a computer has something to fear from the Internet's scurvy crew of hackers, crackers, and virus writers, or from companies that want to track your surfing habits. But you don't need to be paranoid; you just need the right tools to protect your PC.

We compared almost two dozen hardware and software defenses against a variety of security and privacy threats, and we designed a tool kit of both must-have and optional products for each of three computing environments:

• a home PC used by one or more members of a family;
  
  
• a group of networked PCs in a small-business setting with limited IT support;
  
  
• a laptop used for business travel (see " Portable Security Tool Kit").
  
  

To create our tool kits, we looked at five antivirus utilities, six software firewalls, three hardware firewalls, four file-encryption products, a pair of e-mail encryptors, and two anonymous-surfing utilities. (For buying information and details on all the products we review, see the table. See "Internet Security Downloads" for trial versions of some of these products and other related software.) We also looked at products for managing Internet cookies; see our review for our picks.

Most Internet threats affect both home and office PC users. Some, such as viruses, are equally important to both groups. Other threats are more prominent for one group or the other: Companies that track Web surfing habits, for example, are a matter of concern mostly for home users who are worried about protecting their personal privacy.

Every home user should first install a reliable antivirus program to help defend against viruses and Trojan horses, which can do anything from stealing passwords to reformatting your hard drive to allowing hackers to take command of your system.

After guarding against viruses, home users may want a firewall to block potential exposure to outside attacks. The danger of being hacked is fairly small if you connect occasionally via a dial-up modem, but the risks are greater if you have a high-speed, always-on broadband connection such as DSL or cable. To further protect against snoops, you may choose to encrypt confidential files such as financial records and e-mail.

Surfing the Web presents additional dangers. Many sites (and their advertisers) track visitors' browsing habits. An anonymizing service can keep your identity and surfing preferences private. Finally, recent attacks on e-commerce Web sites, such as the infiltration of Egghead.com last December, raise concerns about hackers stealing credit card numbers from customer databases. Credit card companies are offering new services to reduce these risks.

If your home is also your office, or if you are in charge of computers for a small business, you face additional challenges. You probably have a high-speed Internet connection and are therefore an easier target for snoops and troublemakers--especially if you run a Web site. You also have to manage securing an entire network against viruses and hackers. In addition, you may need to protect proprietary information by encrypting sensitive files and e-mail communications.

How We Tested

When choosing antivirus software, we considered vendors whose products have been effective in past PC World tests and independently certified by ICSA Labs for their reliability at catching viruses and repairing damaged files. We evaluated the ease of installing the products, running them, and updating the all-important virus-signature files that protect against the latest malicious scripts.

The PC World Test Center evaluated how well firewalls distinguished between hostile and friendly activities. We planted the Back Orifice 2000 Trojan horse on a test system and attempted to access it from our attacking computer. We ran a port scanner to find open access points, and we tried connecting to a shared hard drive. Finally, we tested whether the firewalls blocked TSAdbot, a component of some freeware programs that downloads and displays advertisements while sending data back to its maker.

Along with blocking harmful connections, a firewall should permit legitimate Internet usage. We tested this by separately running seven common applications: Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.5 and NetMeeting 3.0, WS-FTP LE 5.0, ICQ 2000, Napster 2.0, RealPlayer 6.0, and Symantec's PCAnywhere 9.2.

We tested file and e-mail encryption software, noted whether the products use trusted, peer-reviewed encryption standards, and looked for extra features, such as the ability to hide files. To evaluate anonymous surfing utilities, we observed whether the products caused noticeable slowdowns in surfing speed and whether they worked with software that requires cookies (such as Web-based e-mail).

Editors' Note (4/12/01): Contrary to a statement originally made in the comparison chart, the free version of Freedom 2.0 includes a firewall and a cookie manager. The $50 Premium version adds anonymous surfing, e-mail, and chat.