Not sure what u have heard. But I know symanatecs well enough to laugh at the idea. Firewalls, adware, malware, spyware all the little plugins that go into services making for very annoying AVS that will make ur Q6600 scream for air every time you try to game. And to round it all off,,well it... SUCKS!!!!
Hate to say u can't really get a good updated virus scanner today. You have all these people trying to say ur 100% unsafe if u don't have a firewall and this and that. What ever, chit happens from time to time doesn't matter how much protection u have. To many problems with bit, safe bet would be going with kaspersky. They have all the annoying plugins too but, well it... Doesn't suck!!