Technically there's not much difference, but in-use differences are clear.
1. Norton is extremely powerful and great...but mostly only if you're on a network or in an office network. The bandwidth loads on your machine from the Norton-AV real-time-protection process are huge! It hovers between 3 and 19 megs on your system, and if you're running a scan, you might as well go watch TV.
2. McAfee is nice, and cheaper, and is geared towards personal use verses Norton's network focus. The problem here is that McAfee is buggy, slow to update, and doesn't have as large a user-base to help identify problems and viruses. McAfee is also pretty stoggy about being installed on other machines, while Norton loads up anywhere.
3. Both applications will keep you safer than doing without, of course. I would choose between the two on how you like the GUI, as the protection is about the same. Of course, no AV is enough. You should have a firewall somewhere. If you have SP2, use SP2's firewall and you'll be fine. If not, get one from the web.
diffrence between symantec and Macfee antivirus softwares 
Linear Mode
