The 'old' Norton had a justified reputation as being sluggish etc. However, i switched to NIS a few years ago after reading many, many rave reviews over it's performance. One of it's main assets being praised was it's new lighter footprint.
I have recommended it to lots of people since i purchased it as i have been delighted that whenever Live Update runs nothing at all even flickered.
However, i'm now on the edge of throwing my money away and switching to a different AV product. The Live Update is absolutely awful whenever it runs. It freezes EVERYTHING. I can't even pull Task Manager up. I can be typing into a spreadsheet or a simple Word document and it's all no go. It actually cost me money once in a Poker game when i got timed out and couldn't place a bet in time on a hand that would have won big.
I have 80% of my hard drive unused. I don't have any memory shortage problems. I can easily run a 3GB live video stream and other applications all at the same time without any stutter. I have 40GB broadband connection. I'm using WIndows XP SP3 Media Centre and Internet Explorer 8 as my main browser.
NIS in general even annoyingly ignores the fact that i have selected for it not to run background tasks when i am in full screen mode. Leave that aside though as my big problem is with Live Update. I've heard other people quote their AV products as freezing whatever they are doing when it runs an update. However, as mentioned earlier i've never experienced that with NIS. That fact alone is why i have only just renewed my product for a second or third time recently.
As an interim emergency measure, as i have a lot of full screen urgent work to be done. If i do the following;
1. Before i open any site and as i open my browser i RUN Live Update.
2. I then DISABLE Live Update.
Will my computer during my surfing and connecting to services (official well known purchased reputable sports streams etc.) still be protected from any attacks such as intrusion attempts etc.?
Will i be protected from email and instant messenger attacks? Particularly in the case of the latter when i am chatting to someone? I know once in the past i got a message saying not to click on a link in an IM message and the person i was talking to had not sent the link. (I never clicked on it and never suffered any infection.)
3. I'll run Live Update again just before i close the browser. I'll also leave it enabled whilst my computer is not being used at all.