Norton was hell. McAfee seemed better but turned out to be a different kind of hell.
Then I got Trend Micro. Ahhhhhh…no more hell.
Certain software has gotten consistently bad reviews from the teeming millions over the years. Norton, McAfee and PeopleSoft are probably the most commonly pitted, but I would add PowerBuilder and CSS as software (or in the case of CSS - specs) from hell.
When I purged Norton Internet Security a couple of years ago, I got a router, intended only to be used as a firewall. The bliss it’s given me is worth much more than I payed for it. I just checked Best Buy and you can get one that will do the job for $40. It won’t deal with spam and I know you asked about software, but a hardware firewall will be a rtemendous boost to your system. It doesn’t use a single cycle of your CPU and no RAM.