I agree!

Symantec Con Job

It has to be the biggest con job in IT to convince consumers that they should pay a separate subscription for each of the above “protection” products. So you pay for virus protection, then pay a bit more for spyware protection, and if those don’t work, buy an anti-rootkit package and if your PC still falls into a botnet, here’s your $29.95 anti-botnet tool.

I am always amazed at how often Microsoft is slammed for their business practices when often they are just following the wishes of their user base. Yes, Microsoft certainly deserves some criticism and needs to be watched - always, but Norton/Symantec has, IMO, been the bigger offender ever since Peter Norton sold Norton Utilities to Symantec many many years ago. Yes, their products generally are good at what they do. But their products are bloated, very intrusive (ever tried to completely remove their AV?), and expensive.

Ed Bott said about this,

Every time I think these guys can’t get any more shameless, they surprise me.

I wish I could find a transcript of the wonderful “tootsie-frootsie ice cream” sketch from the Marx Bros film, A Day at the Races. This whole racket is reminiscent of the way Chico keeps selling Groucho extra tipsheets and code books when he learns that the ones he already bought aren’t quite complete.)

Yes, Symantec products are good, but so are many competing products - but without the arrogance, intrusiveness, or cost - and by cost, I mean monetarily (initial and recurring), and in system resources/performance.

I've always hated Symantec software and have never endorsed it at all. Symantec are also extremely good at acquiring companies that produce nice pieces of software and turning them into resource hogs. A few examples are Sygate Personal Firewall, Partition Magic, Powerquest Drive Image, etc, etc. All of these products are now under Norton's bloated interface. They truly are an awful company.

You can give their software some credit for being capable and doing what it does well, but its a shame your computer is slowed down to a crawl. There is much better software out there that is on a par with any Norton software or better.