Stay safe online: best software tools & strategies.(COMPUTER SECURITY)(Buyers guide)

Every time you go online, you step into the middle of a heated arms race. On one side, there's an invisible force of virus writers, spyware perpetrators, spammers, and con artists. On your side, an arsenal of software to detect and kill the viruses, spyware, and spam created by those cyber-rogues.

It isn't enough for those programs to merely eliminate familiar viruses and spyware. To provide superior protection, a program must be able to defend against threats it has never seen before.

In addition, Swiss-Army-knife-style suites attempt to protect you from a range of threats at once. (Some, including Microsoft's new Live OneCare, add more than security features; see box below.)

This report provides a seven-step guide to online safety. It includes tests of software: suites, antispyware, antispam, and antivirus. For the last we employed innovative consumer tests in which viruses we created were unleashed under high security on antivirus programs (see From Our Labs, on page 26).

7 STEPS TO SECURITY

1 Enable existing protection. Be sure you're fully utilizing the protection available from your operating system and Internet provider. Start by activating a firewall, which is software or hardware that blocks unauthorized communications between your computer and the Internet. It's especially important to do this if you have high-speed service. Windows XP and Mac OS X have a built-in firewall, although both block only incoming communications. For greater protection, you can also use a firewall that blocks outgoing communications; several antivirus programs listed in the Ratings have one.

Consider other free protection. Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Apple Mail (bundled with new Macs) include spam blockers, as do most large ISPs, such as MSN and EarthLink. Some automatically enable it; others require you to turn it on. AOL, EarthLink, MSN, and Yahoo also offer phishing filters and virus scanning for e-mail at no additional charge. Use them as one layer of a multilayer defense. Even the free e-mail services Hotmail and Gmail provide their own spam protection.