$50 symantics

Seems like the $50 plus $25 a year "subscription" to keep the product working that we give Symantec for its antivirus program is a big, fat waste of money. Despite all its constant updating and hogging of system resources that slow even Shai's superfast new machine to a snail's pace, it's neither able to protect us from virus attack nor able to clean the viruses and adware from the machine successfully. To be honest, I'm not sure that any other program is any better, but I'm guessing that there are many out there that offer better value for money. The only source of solace, as I surf out a different AV reputed to kill the bug that we've caught and pay another $40, is reading the nasty comments from other Symantec users. One guy writes that the people at Symantec actually offered to clean the virus off his PC for a $50 fee! Isn't that what your antivirus SOFTWARE is supposed to do? he replied. I'd rather send the money to one of your competitors. He received a groveling response with new instructions (they didn't work either) and then bought a new program. WTF! Do we need a different AV for every virus? Has anybody ever downloaded one of Symantec's "fixers" that actually worked?