Viruses: Software configuration

These are obviously just recommendations in general. Specific software might be missing some of these options. This is just what we automatically try to do when setting up any brand of ani-virus software.

Installation

• Purchase new software instead of 'renewing'. There's almost no point in renewing your subscription when you can just purchase a newer version for the same price.
• If you do purchase new software, uninstall all antivirus software first, even if it's an 'upgrade'. Be sure to reboot after that. Then install the new stuff.
• Keep your subscription up to date, either by upgrading or renewing. Seriously, when you stop getting updates, your antivirus is completely useless. You might as well uninstall it and stop pretending you have an antivirus.
• When the install is finished, update your definations and then, if possible, scan your computer. Scanning your computer can wait, but do not wait until the scheduled update to get current definations, the ones supplied with the product are at least a week, and possible six months, outdated. You do not want to run all day with those. Most install programs will prompt you for this automatically.

Scheduling

• Update definitions as often as reasonable, but not more often. If antivirus definitions are released at a certain time each day, it's completely pointless and wastes everyone's time if you've scheduled yours to update hourly. The recommended time of day is almost always the best time, don't try to outguess the software on that. Even if it does it while you're using the computer, it shouldn't be noticable on anything but dialup.
• Schedule a full disk scan to run while you're asleep. Feel free to reschedule this if you're usually using the computer at that time. We recommend setting it to scan every file, not just executables, and scan inside compressed files. In fact, turn on every single option you can, including the heuristic scanner to maximum intelligence, because you don't care how much CPU it takes in the middle of night.
• If you don't want to leave your computer on all the time, schedule it for every night, but then just turn your computer off every day except Friday. There's no point in trying to schedule things around when you might leave your computer on. If it's on, it might as well scan, and if it's not, it obviously won't.
• Be sure to schedule the full disk scan after the definitition update. A small thing, but you'd be surprised how many people's computer scan for viruses at eleven at night, and update their definitions at one in the morning. That's not very logical. Some antivirus lets you schedule them in one step, with the full scan starting as soon as it has new definitions.

Other

• Set the real-time scanner to not scan files on write, just on read, if that's an option. Scanning a file on write is fairly pointless if it's going to be scanned every time it's executed anyway. Have it just scan executables, and don't scanning within archives, to save CPU time.
• As for the heuristic for real-time detection, we can't make any general recommendations here, except to go with the default the software provides. Be careful when reading the install instructions for other programs before installing other software, as some of them will want you to turn off the real-time heuristic scanner off during their install. Often, a software installation involves writing to executable files, and writing to executable files is exactly what that is looking for.
• Don't worry about email scanning. If it comes on automatically and you can send and receive mail, keep it on. If you're using webmail, it's not doing anything for you, but it will stop viruses from emailing things directly from your computer. If you find you can't send or receive email anymore, turn it off without worry.
• Leave script blocking turned on.
• A lot of download software has the ability to run antivirus software when it's done. Don't worry about it. 99% of the time you downloaded it for your machine and it will get scanned when executed. It will also get scanned when copied to a floppy or CD. The only time it won't would be if you downloaded it directly to a shared drive, either on your computer, or across the network, in which case people could access it without it going through your virus scanner. However, a) that's what the 'scan on write' scanner is for that we recommended above you turn off, so if you often download things to one computer and then immediately run them on another, leave it on, and b) those other computers should be running antivirus too, and catch the virus there, so this entire thing should be moot.