I'm primarily a Windows user on the desktop/laptop side (though I do also use a lot of Linux/Unix/embedded systems) and my advice to everyone who asks (as the t

I'm primarily a Windows user on the desktop/laptop side (though I do also use a lot of Linux/Unix/embedded systems) and my advice to everyone who asks (as the token 'IT advice guy' to lots of friends and family) is just don't install anti-virus software. Modern Windows is better off without it. As far back as XP the best option was to install Microsoft's own Windows Defender and uninstall everything else, now just use what the OS already comes with. Microsoft's goal with virus elimination is to make Windows work better, 3rd party vendor's goals with virus elimination are to upsell you on a lot of crap you don't need. It isn't difficult to see why the 3rd party stuff is all a bunch of crap that floods you with false positives while bogging your system down in an attempt to seem like it is doing something useful. Yes, there are occasionally exceptions to the rule, but they all eventually follow a logical progression from useful lightweight tool to bloated piece of shit that is worse than most viruses they could possibly save you from.