I also got fed up with Norton. It seemed to bog things down and sometimes wouldn't play nice with some of the ThinkVantage applications on my ThinkPad. I even tried going back to a Corporate Edition of Norton that I dug up from an old W2K laptop, but that was too old and didn't communicate its status with the XP Windows Security Center control panel.

I checked out a couple of different trial versions of other anti-virus programs and settled on a free version of Kaspersky offered by AOL (of all firms), the AOL Active Virus Shield. You can find the download through CNET's download.com. You don't have to be an AOL subscriber, but you do have to give them an e-mail address (to get the activation code by e-mail).

It seems to be lighter on system resources than Norton, works with the XP Windows Security Center, and plays nice with the ThinkVantage applications. The underlying Kaspersky engine seems to be well-regarded. And the price is right. So far so good. If I do end up with a virus, I'll probably check out the full version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus to try to get rid of it. The free version from AOL is only a scanner and shield. Recovery and clean-up requires the full version.