My computer came with a limited trial of Norton Anti-Virus. Now the free subscription is on the verge of lapsing. Is it worth my while to pay 40 dollars a year to continue it? I guess that breaks down to two issues:
Look - any virus protection is better than none. Me, I personally prefer Trend Officescan - but for crying out loud, get a virus scan and keep it up to date, please! I don’t want to be spammed by your computer because some zombie e-mailer is running on your box hitting my mail server 2000x per minute.
In answer to 1) Viruses evolve and are modified weekly - you are going to save a lot more than the $50 price to keep up to date and stay safe. I clean home computers regularly, and I can say without a doubt that a virus scan with 3 month old virus patern files is near useless. You should factor the $50 a year as the cost of computing. I have told a fellow that was writing a book that he lost all his DOC files because a virus searched his system for anything ending in .DOC and replaced all the contents with random characters. While that’s the most extreme, don’t take chances.
In answer to 2) I guess each virus scan has their own strengths and weeknesses, but generally commercial virus-scan products are better than their free equivalents. I can’t find any recent comparisons at the moment, tho…
I’ve been using Norton for several years, and the only thing I don’t care for is that it is a resource hog. When renewal time arrives, I’m going with AVG. Flying without AV or Firewall is kinda like many other pursuits-you might not get hurt, but do you want to take the risk? Can you afford to lose everything on your PC or laptop?
Yep. You definately need to keep current with anti-virus software or else it becomes almost worthless.
I can’t comment on Norton. I used to use McAfee and IE, and it kept out most viruses. The big pain was IE exploits, which McAfee would happily warn me about but couldn’t seem to block at all. Oh thanks, well at least I know I’ve got a virus now. Ugh. About 6 months ago I switched to AVG and changed from IE to firefox. I haven’t had a virus on my machine since.
As far as the free anti-virus programs go, AVG has been the most recommended that I’ve seen.
You could get a Mac and then you have update every…ummm… never.
It may or may not be of interest, but I posted this thread in IMHO recently: Do you all have anti virus software?
I dumped Norton and replaced it with AVG. It’s cheaper and seems to work better.
I don’t know much about ant viruses. 
The Computer Guys on the radio gave a said that Grisof/AVG does a pretty good job. If it truly is less resource intensive then maybe I’ll try it. Not that I’m having any problems with my system. I may not even notice any difference. But all the same keeping it lean as I go makes things simpler.
Are there any stats availabkle about the differing resource usages of Norton and AVG?
I have AVG and haven’t had any problems at all. Works like a charm.
Targets a specific type of bug, obviously. 
Anything is better than nothing. I assume that NOT having your computer hosed by a virus and losing some important files/saved email/family pictures/music collection/etc. is worth at least $40 to you? Yes you do need the updates as new viruses pop up all the time.
In addition to what others have said, do yourself a favor and stop using Internet Explorer. Download Firefox (www.mozilla.org) or Opera (www.opera.com) and you will have far less problems with parasites, unwanted popups and other nasties. They both work quite well and are free (Firefox is completely free, Opera is free with a small sponsored ad in the corner).
my short answer is yes, as they are an industry leader and keep on top of current virus developments, and you get continuous updates with your subscription until it expires. Viruses change continuously so unforunately some type of update is necessary for any real protection… but at least run the software if you can’t afford the updates as some protection is better than none.
For reviews about norton av and others see the following:
http://computershopper.com.com/Norton_AntiVirus_2005/4514-3681_7-30998882.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1646457,00.asp
All major antivirus software does a good job of protecting you. Antivirus software is thus a commodity, and you always should choose a commodity on price. AVG, Antivir, or Bitdefender are all free – pick one.
Valgard:
If I start using Firefox, should I completely delete IE from my computer?
I’m thinking that even if you don’t actually use IE but still have it there (maybe as an icon) then “things” can still download onto your computer through IE - it’s just that you won’t see them. Is this correct?
No. You will run into problems with Firefox on some websites. I haven’t run into this problem in a while, but it will happen.
Besides Firefox has a nifty “open link in IE” button for just such occasions.
Well without some extraordinary work on your part you can’t “uninstall” IE from a Windows machine, but don’t use it unless you absolutely have to. I have to use IE for MS Windows Update site (shock) where the majority of the downloads are patches for…IE (double shock).
And as Kel said you will occasionally find sites that are written with IE in mind and won’t work properly for a non-IE browser. But the vast majority are fine.
I have the free version of AVG. It’s easy to use, and works great.
I have the free version of Avast Antivirus. I love it. When I installed it about a year ago (when I fed up with the price of Norton), it immediately found two viruses that Norton hadn’t caught. And I was up to date daily with the virus definitions.
Is it advisable to have more than one antivirus ? When unloading, I’m warned not to have two a.v. I have both Norton and Antivir and they don’t seem to interfere.