This might be the best or worst purchase I have ever done. I've got a great experience with a trial some time ago on my dad's computer, but...

What does anyone think of the 2013 version?

At least I have 60 days to try out before I can't get a refund if I hate it.

I never liked Norton. I just didn't find it as user friendly as Kaspersky is. Plus, for some reason, I feel safer with Kaspersky.

One thing I've noticed is that after I switched to Norton 360, I can finally have a full system scan without the computer being bogged down so severely that it's hard for IE to stay stable.

Also... one of the reasons:
I wouldn't trust MSE these days.

My family are all users of Norton (except me, I have no virus protection ) and we all feel that it is a reliable and effective service.

I had Norton for a year and hated it to be quite honest. :X
I just feel safer with other antiviruses.

Another good Antivirus is McAfee, which is aparently better at detecting viruses.

McAfee's anti-virus software is garbage. The only product of theirs I trust is SiteAdvisor, which seems to work okay without spamming you with offers.

As for Norton, I don't really have too much of an opinion. The last time I used it wasn't too bad, and that was six years ago.

LolNorton. Well, I cannot speak for the 2013 version, but the older versions.... well.... it's a joke among some people I know as well as some common computer hackers. From my knowledge, it really only scans the 'surface' area and barely anything underneath, or in this case I'm to suppose it's the vital hidden files. I have used AVGFree in the past but it alone didn't do the job, just like Norton, and I needed other software. I tried McAfee and it gave me more problems than preventing them. Now I am using the freebie version of Avast! and I've had little trouble with it... however I don't think any of the above specialize in certain malicious maleware alone so I still have to use Maleware Bytes, which is not an issue as that thing is spectacular. But yeah... I probably won't be using Norton ever, last I "used" it was yeeaaaars ago before I really even wasted all my day on a computer with anything.

It's easy to explain why some programs scan faster.

Ever heard of known programs (whitelisting) and cached results?

A good security program worth its salt employs both so that it can skip files that are unchanged and/or good and known from its databases. (There's a reason why given the same amount of data, MSE takes forever to scan, while Norton 2013 can end it in minutes - Norton is skipping known good files.) It's better than scanning everything without exceptions.

Symantec knew their program was so slow that the 2009 version was a complete rewrite. Seems like reviews went up after that.

Both MacAfee and Norton just don't cut it. In my opinion, their software is just bloated garbage.

I'm am an avid user of Avast! and AVG for my computers' security. They get the job done for free without much hassle. Their protection in addition to other programs such as MalwareBytes has proved effective for me and has kept me virus free for years.

Of course, lol. I wouldn't be running two anti-virus programs simultaneously on a single computer. I have Avast! a couple of my computers, and AVG on the others.