Concur with this, although I’d suggest Fedora or Debian.
If you’re using Windows, just stick with Defender.
Discussion
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Yeah, with Windows I would go with Bitdefender. I used it in the final years too.
Bitdefender don’t accept Bitcoin
Sorry, Windows Defender. I wouldn’t pay for AV on Windows.
I would never trust Windows Defender. I saw some really bad shit happening to those PCs which used Defender. BTW "if you don't pay for the product you are the product". It's a cliche but very very true.
Defender is now one of the better EDR platforms on the market. The number of sensors means they have significant more telemetry data to train ML models.
Many organisations are moving aware from Carbon Black / CrowdStrike Falcon etc.
When it comes to trust, I do not use any MS services unless I absolutely have to for work. Strongly recommend moving to Fedora / Ubuntu and dual booting into Windows if you have a specific need (ie, gaming).
I don't think that there are any AV company that accepts Bitcoin. But in the next bull run all of them will accept. :)