Norton antivirus is good infact its up there with the best of them , however generally people tend to not buy just the AV and get suites instead such as Norton 360 incorporating firewall antispam pc cleaners etc , Nortons suites are infamous for bogging down slower pc's with too many running resources and utilising too much ram , mainly i think as Norton are trying too hard to make them "idiot proof"
as a standalone AV i cant not recommend Norton , it quite often gets A++ ratings over at AV comparatives , as a complete solution however (firewall antispam etc) then no I would never recommend Norton , infact i hate it , i look after alot of pc's (just for friends and family) and ive had far too much trouble with it ............. rubbish
I cant really recommend anything as i dont have enough knowlage but i can tell yuo i use Eset smart security...and its fantastic