I fully agree that the antivirus market is a cesspool, and long has been so. The upside is that Microsoft’s first-party solution is decent and ships with the OS

I fully agree that the antivirus market is a cesspool, and long has been so. The upside is that Microsoft’s first-party solution is decent and ships with the OS, so you can sidestep the entire project of figuring out which third-party AVs somehow manage to do more good than harm. I haven’t looked into AV for macOS in ages; when last I did (~5y?), Sophos (if corporate/paid) and ClamAV (fine for home use) seemed reasonably non-interfering.