Hi Ashwin,

I repair many computers and I end up removing Norton by request in most cases. I hear people say, "it's a great AV, it never once said I had an infection". That's because it's not detecting the infections. When I uninstall Norton and run other AV, I find many infections that the Norton scan said was clean. The latest is a bit lighter on resources than previous versions but all in all, I feel it's bloatware and only popular due to it's name and that it's pre-installed on OEMs. That's my personal take on Norton.

I agree with Avinash, Kaspersky is one I would recommend and has been one that keeps up a good detection rate and is lighter on resources than some others. I would be hard pressed to choose between Kaspersky and Avira Anti-vir or ESET NOD32. All great. However I would suggest Avira Anti Vir, but not their security suite, same with some others not listed here and here's why...

... there may be a major difference when purchasing a " security suite " as the AV may be great but other aspects my not. This is why I wish vendors would stick to doing one thing well instead of following in Norton's steps and implementing the bloat that does nothing but bring down a good security application in many aspects. Kaspersky and Bitdefender have both been running among the highest for good suites since the beginning of 2009 till current. Norton typically remains in the low 60% range.

As much as I am against using Comodo, I cannot deny they have been having a great security run and been right up there with the best if not "better", especially for free. PCtools is another that has been climbing the ladder and actually above as well.

But we all have opinions and what's good for one, may not be what someone else likes so on that note... you may want to browse here

http://www.matousec.com/projects/proact ... challenge/

They do very in depth testing and are not biased like numerous testing sites which will say, Norton is the best, buy Norton $$$$$.

Hope this helps some,

Paul