Seems there is more giong against Symantec than for it.
When I lost my first h/d to viruses, from pure ignorance, a good friend warned me off Symantec. "It's as good as a virus."
Began with Grisoft's AVG freeware, tried this and that, incl. Nod32, a2Squared, then a freeware trial of Pandalabs' Titanium. That last sold me and I went the full paid-up route. Brilliant kit. Updated automatically, avg and anti-spyware, with a firewall. Very low-maintenance. Their 'Truprevent' technologies seems to be at the leading edge of virus/worm/trojan defence.
Zonealarm and CCleaner are must-haves and they're free.
When the budget improves I'll look around for a standalone hardware firewall.