This is only my persoanl opinion but I gave up using Symantec(Norton)products a few years ago and have been using a free product(AVG 7) for quite a while and find it does a good job with an easy to use interface and does not seem to interfere too much with day to day tasks. There are of course many anti virus programs to choose from and selecting the best one for your situation may be difficult but there are a lot of good people who use this site who may be able to guide
you in the right direction.
Cheers
Nigel

You'll probably get a few more anti-Norton hits. I had NSW 2003 (bought for Ghost) and couldn't wait to get rid of it as it was too intrusive- and it would appear that everything other than Norton is less intrusive.
I have been using McAfee from versions 4 right through to 10 (AV & Firewall) and have not had any real problems and it is very unobtrusive ( My mate switched to McAfee and couldn't believe how good it was in this area).
Of course you have to pay for it.
I have read some good reports on a number of the free AV's around and if you can get past the 'nag screen' (can't remember which one) then you will have adequate AV protection.

I too use AVG7 free edition and it serves me very well. (Home network, 5 children 5 to 13, wireless and wired, 7 PC's.) The best on the market is NOD32 but is not free. Almost any major name AV will run rings around Norton, both in detection and significantly lower usage of system resources.
Chris B

I like the others got rid of norton a long logg time ago and up till a few months I to used AVG and had no complaints with it and still haven't but I have now turned to Avast 4 free for the home user and with out any doubt its the best I found that AVG allowed the virus to come through and then told you so you could fix it Avast stop's any being down loaded .
Bygum.

Perhaps this means you'll join the happy band of EX-Norton users? My experiences with NAV were similar and I dumped it years ago for that reason and switched to McAfee (only because I got a free copy in a competition), but nowadays I use nothing for than Grisoft's AVG-7. It's free from grisoft.com
It's so UNobtrusive that I used to wonder if it was actually working at all, but one day it did warn me of a virus intrusion, so I'm confident that it's doing the job.
Many people on this forum have bagged Norton, so you're not the only one who finds their AV product a pain in the neck. In my experience, it didn't even work properly, failing to detect two viruses at different times, which other AV software found and deleted.
Give the free AVG-7 a go. It gets good raps from those who use it and mine is set for auto-update so you don't even have to worry about that.
Paul.

I dropped Norton's for Kaspersky last year and now I am running Kaspersky Internet suite 6, i find it very good, not so resources hungry and the suite is a really integrated tool not just a collection of different programs put together.
Updates are daily. Cost is slightly higher than Norton, I spent 76USD first year and about 40 at renewal.
I feel it is better than any other free program you can find if you need to protect your sensitive data, if computer is only un for fun there are plenty of free solutions offering a good degree of security.

G'day
I'm using Zone alarm security suite which uses the Vet antivirus engine. It's pretty easy on resources and has also firewall, spam filter and antispy features.
Pretty good as far as I'm concerned
It's available for trial download
Regards
Douglas

After 2003, I also gave up on Nortons. Symantec wants to be all things to all people and has become so intrusive it is unbearable.
At first I tried NOD32 (not free), but found it very difficult to setup. Setup options are very difficult to find and understand exactly what they do even when you find them. My understanding this will be corrected in version 3.0.
At present I am using AVG Pro (not free) and find it about as unintrusive as any AV can be expected to be. The interface is easy to use and default settings do everything I want it to do. The price is NOT bad, a two year update is about $40 US. From what I have heard, the free version is also very good, although I have not tried it.
That is my 2 cents worth, good luck
BTW my boot time is now about 1/3 what it used to be using Nortons.

I had Norton come pre-installed on my PC and after the three month trial was up I paid up and kept it for the following twelve months. However, after downloading an update that effectively shut down my firewall and disabled Norton itself I learned my lesson.
I immediately started doing my homework on a replacement and found none better than NOD32 - except perhaps Kapersky. I followed detailed instructions in setting up NOD32 and have only the greatest respect for the product two years later. I'll be renewing my licence in September without question.
Having said that, I have also installed AVG and Avast on computers for friends who didn't want to spend money on antivirus products and have found both of those products to be acceptable - and both are better than Norton.
As mentioned earlier, find out the right way to uninstall Norton and make sure you clear it off your system before you install any new product.
Good luck.
Nicky

I quit using Norton when I bought an upgrade and it broke my machine. It's an old P3 800, but does everything I need very well, except antivirus. The AV people seem to think every one has the latest fastest machine. Tried Bit Defender on recommendation of the sales person at Fry's, and it killed the machine too. Used AVG 7 Free quite happily for a couple of years, until version 8 forcibly replaced version 7. AVG 8 worked OK when first installed, but once it downloads the updates, the machine slows to a crawl. Its so frustrating I'm tempted to do without.