[Osiris]

I have been using Norton products in the past and was always astonished how resource hungry those products were. They surely looked professional which was the main reason why I did install them but they slowed down the system and were really hard to remove from the system.
Norton Internet Security 2006 for instance slows down system start of the average pc by more than 40 seconds which is one of the reasons why I think that it is not worth it. A lot of great, resource friendly applications exist that can fully replace most Norton applications and I would recommend to make the switch.
The Norton Removal Tool is helpful because it can remove a failed installation or damaged Norton product from your system. I would even suggest to run this application after using the default uninstallation process just to make sure that all files and settings are gone as well.
A lot of computers and notebooks ship with (trial) versions of Symantec or Norton products as well and I would suggest to uninstall them as well using the described method.
Alternatives vary of course depending on the Norton product that you are using. I suppose the antivirus software is the most common one which can be replaced by AntiVir for instance. Just write a comment if you are looking for a recommendation for another product.
Read More:
Norton Removal Tool for Windows 2000 / XP / Vista
Norton Removal Tool Windows 98 / Me
AntiVir