opinions will vary.
personally, i consider norton to be nearly as bad as a virus/malware.
ive been using MSSE since it came out, with no infections so far. (did I just jinx myself?)

There are other free antivirus programs available. Avast! comes to mind, as does ClamAV.

Rather a strange question to ask in a first post on a forum dedicated to silencing computing. Maybe some other new user will pop along shortly and recommend some other product, also in their first post?

Anyway, Norton needs to die in a fire. A fire started by an asteroid strike.

I currently use Microsoft Security Essentials, and I have found it to be quite effective. I have not had an infection in years, although I am quite a cautious browser, which may be a contributing factor to my being infection-free. I suggest Microsoft Security Essentials if you have access to it. Otherwise, you may wish to consider Avira.

Having been a staunch opponent of Norton Antivirus in the past I had to cave in after trying their products from the last couple of years. What used to be a resource heavy program suite has been rewritten to become one of the less demanding among those also providing high protection. Its interface that rarely ask users questions they can rarely know how to answer, I feel especially comfortable recommending NAV to the average home user. Still, I quit using it myself about six months ago when I encountered a couple of of false positives, that due to the simplified interface were complicated to rectify. As annoying as such a factor may be for some users, not an issue for most. After that experience I read up on the latest tests and tried BitDefender for a month. Had I felt the need for a paid antivirus for my own system I would definitely have bought it.

Still there are good free alternatives. Presently perhaps the best scoring in third party tests is Panda Cloud Antivirus, and I can confirm that it's not resource demanding either. Microsoft's Security Essentials is certainly better than having no protection, but lags far behind the safer free alternatives like Avira or Panda Cloud Antivirus. Edit: Panda Cloud in its current version I've found has some issues in the interface and performance, so I can't recommend it at present after all.

I had thought of this as well. Let's see.

ditto. thats why i took the bait...

interesting to hear norton has reduced its bloat/hog-ware status... or is it that we just have more cycles to spare now-a-days, so we dont really notice norton slowing modern systems to a crawl anymore?

I've been using BitDefender for a while now. The latest version caused me issues. I could not log onto FaceBook and I had trouble logging into NewEgg to buy stuff. I turned off their added protection for logons, but that made no difference. I know BitDefender was the issue because I uninstalled it and things worked right after a bootup or 2.

I hate to not use it anymore because it has saved me half a dozen times over the last few years, but as of late I find it to be too aggressive. I have the AV only version and I don't expect it to police my Internet surfing habits. Warnings are one thing, stopping me is another. And explanations? None, I couldn't log onto NewEgg, it would simply refresh the screen and leave my logon credentials empty. You kind of get the hint after a coupe of 20/30 attempts.

I accessed their forums and posted my issues to no avail. It was a brand new Win 7 build. I'm disappointed, so it's MS Sec Essentials for me at the moment. I also run SpyBot and MalWareBytes. SpyBot has really saved me a few times, I'm going to send them a couple of bucks.

How is the AVG (free-edition) during recently? I rememeber some years ago when it was the go-to free antivirus application but I haven't heard of it much since then?

Free AVG and Free Avast versions are an option. I have to say that the paid versions are getting slightly better results when tested by AV-comparatives and other sites.

Free Avira and free MS security Essentials are not to recommend any longer.

If you want to go free AV, then AVG or Avast. If you insist on a paid product (they do offer more features, but not necessarily more security), then Kaspersky, Norton, f-Secure and Bitdefender seem to rule the test charts.

Bottom line: If you pay attention where you click and where you surf, AVG or Avast free offer reasonable protection at an unbeatable price.

I was almost going to advice against AVG Free, but checking up on some recent tests it seems to have gotten back on track again, after lagging behind in recent years. That's good to hear since last I used AVG Free, though it was a few years ago, it always behaved well. (In the past 12-24 months I saw so many machines of friends and customers where really bad things had just waltzed past AVG, and haven't seen many use it since.)
Avira AntiVir Personal also get good reviews actually and consistently so for years, but it displays a nag screen about buying the program once every day. Microsoft's is in a little-league of its own in comparison to most others on both detection and update frequency. But it's better than nothing and the best of all is a careful user of course.

Two serious test sites that I'm keeping an eye on: http://www.av-comparatives.org and http://www.av-test.org .

Edit: I'll have to recant my trust in Panda Cloud Antivirus in its current form. Security is probably great, but it has a couple of odd bugs (interface and some in some instances also performance-wise) that seem to take undue time to fix. Stay away for now regardless of its safety scores.