USING YOUR ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM

What  you get when you buy an anti-virus program
What you need to do to maintain your anti-virus program
What an anti-virus proxy server does
Adjusting settings when  anti-virus mail proxy are used
Problems an anti-virus mail proxy servers can cause and how to correct them

What  you get when you buy an anti-virus program.
When you purchase anti-virus software (or when it comes with a new computer), you receive two things: the program itself and a subscription to its update service. Your anti-virus program uses a set of virus definitions to detect and eliminate viruses. You can think of the virus definitions as a "mug book" for viruses and other miscreants.  You are only protected against viruses  your anti-virus program knows about, so the virus definitions need to be updated regularly, which is where the update service come in.  You should update your virus definitions once per week. Eventually, your anti-virus program will ask you to spend more money (typically twenty to thirty dollars) to re-subscribe to its update service for a few more years. 

What you need to do to maintain your anti-virus program.

• You should update your virus definitions once per week. You can start updates manually, but most anti-virus programs can be set to automatically update their virus definitions at a given time and day. Take the time to consult your antivirus program's documentation and become familiar with this aspect of its operation.
• If your anti-virus program warns you that your update subscription is about to run out, be sure to renew your subscription as per its instructions. If your subscription lapses and your updates cease, you will not be protected against new viral threats.  NOTE: Occasionally you may be asked to upgrade your anti-virus program rather than just updating the virus definitions (the mug book). This can be necessary if the version of the program you are using is a few years old, but this can also just be marketing, so read the notification carefully.  If you must upgrade your program in order to stay protected, then do it.  If you are simply being offered more or different feature (like disk management software or firewall software) consider your options first.

What an anti-virus proxy server does.
Many anti-virus programs now include a "proxy mail server" which inserts itself between your email program and OlympusNet's mail server and  pretends to be a mail server. Instead of your mail program talking directly to OlympusNet's mail server, it talks to your anti-virus program and the anti-virus program acts as a middle man.  Below is an example for fictional customer "Jane Doe" who is using Outlook Express as a mail Program and Norton anti-virus.

1. Jane clicks the "Send/Receive"   button in Outlook Express
2. Outlook asks Norton for Jane's mail, passing along her username, password and mail server information
3. Norton takes this information from Outlook Express and contacts OlympusNet's mail server pretending to be a mail program (OlympusNet's mail server doesn't know or care if this is Norton or Outlook Express as long as the username and password are correct).
4. OlympusNet's mail server gives the mail to Norton.
5. Norton digests the mail, looking for viruses.
6. Norton gives the mail to Outlook Express, fulfilling its role as a proxy mail server.

Anti-virus mail proxy servers make two fundamental changes to mail setting.  The first change is to replace the the content of the "Incoming mail server" line with a reference to itself. In the example on the right, Norton has replaced the usual setting "mail.olympus.net" with "pop3.norton.antivirus".  Other anti-virus programs may insert "localhost" or "127.0.0.1" in the is spot. The second change made by the anti-virus proxy is to append the name of the mail server that it replaced earlier to the username (called "account name" in some programs) along with a "/" separator.  Compare this to the typical settings for Outlook Express.

Adjusting settings when  anti-virus mail proxy are used
If you have an anti-virus proxy server protecting your mail and you need to change your username or your incoming mail server settings, you can do so by carefully editing the username (sometimes called  "account name") line of your mail program.  Continuing with the above example, imagine that Jane needs to change her username to "jdoe". To do so, she would change the Account name line in her Outlook Express settings to read "jdoe/mail.olympus.net". 

!!! IMPORTANT NOTE FOR OLYMPUSNET MAIL SERVER CHANGE !!!

OlympusNet will be upgrading mail service ( new date pending). After this change, it will be necessary for the incoming mail server to read "mail.olympus.net" in order for you to receive your email. If you find that your incoming mail server setting currently lists either "pop3.norton.antivirus", "localhost" or "127.0.0.1" do not change the incoming mail server itself. Instead, edit the username line (or "Account Name" line) in your mail program to read username/mail.olympus.net substituting your username before the "/" character. For a more complete discussion, read the above section, What an anti-virus proxy server does.

Problems an anti-virus mail proxy servers can cause and how to correct them
As can be seen in the above example, there are many more opportunities for things to wrong when using an anti-virus proxy server than when a mail program gets mail from a server directly. However the benefits usually outweigh the potential problems. The most common problem is when (for whatever reason) the anti-virus proxy server fails to respond to the mail program's request.  Depending on the anti-virus and mail programs being used, this could cause error messages such as "the server 127.0.0.1 could not be found" or "the server pop3.norton.antivirus is not responding". If this occurs, first verify that you are able to connect to the Internet and get web pages. Next try restarting your computer, which can solve an amazing number of problems.

If a restart doesn't help,  contact OlympusNet support for assistance.