Best Single Machine Efficient Antivirus?

[Galant]

I know, I know, this is a perennial question and one for which there are a hundred different answers. So I'll try to streamline this...

I've been requested by a friend to setup a new laptop and she's the sort of user who might not be savvy enough to follow good practise in terms of manually running malware scans, or even avoiding dodgy links. Fortunately, she's not the type to use torrents or head anywhere particularly malicious. Bottom line, some sort of anti-virus/anti-malware program would probably be a good idea, but I haven't bought a retail package like that in a while, so I'm looking for some suggestions/opinions.

Wants:
Faster the better. Don't want a system loaded down.
Not requiring too much config in terms of exceptions etc.
Obviously, it needs to do the job and catch the malware. Don't want something that misses a lot.

System:
Win 10 Asus Laptop (i7 8GB RAM).

Recommendations I've Had:
Kaspersky - "Great all round" - but expensive.
Bit Defender - "Great all round" - but not had any experience with it myself, ever.
E-Set - "Very efficient, doesn't slow the system." - but again, never used it myself.
Malware Bytes Anti-Malware Paid version - ???

[kalniel]

Go look at http://www.av-comparatives.org/ and https://www.av-test.org/ and check some of the tests for a while - sometimes packages are good for a bit then drop down the order.

Personally, I've switched most of the machines I advise on to Panda (http://www.pandasecurity.com/uk/) - it seems to do well enough at the tests, has low system impact, and importantly, only takes a few, simple, changes to the settings to make it work silently without popping up intrusive adverts or reminders etc. This recommendation may well change in the future if they change behaviour, but for the last while it's been my favourite.

Bit defender seems to score the best in the tests, and it used as the engine behind many third-party products.

[OilSheikh]

Avast Antivirus ( Free ) or NOD32 ( paid ). Trend Micro is also a decent antivirus.

[Galant]

Thanks, Kal, for that review site.

After a few comparisons and read ups I've decided to give Bit Defender a go, see how it does. I've also downloaded a trial of Kaspersky onto a different machine to see how that one does.

Both seem to be consistently solid performers.

[virtuo]

I've found the built-in Windows Defender to be fine for most people, it's unobtrusive, does a pretty good job of picking up threats. Particularly if your user doesn't really put themselves in the firing line by hanging around dodgy corners of t'web

[bledd]

Paid..

NOD32
Bitdefender

Personally, I don't bother, I just upload suspect files to Virus Total and might do the odd monthly NOD32 online scan.

[scaryjim]

Interesting to find Avira up near the top of the ratings - it used to be my go to about a decade again, then - iirc - I had issues with both system performance and their customer services, and moved away. But my experience with them otherwise was pretty good, and they're rated highly at av-test, so could be worth giving it a go

[shaithis]

I am still a big fan on Microsoft AV/Bitdefender with MalwareBytes. Seems the most lightweight of solutions as well.

[OilSheikh]

Interesting to find Avira up near the top of the ratings - it used to be my go to about a decade again, then - iirc - I had issues with both system performance and their customer services, and moved away. But my experience with them otherwise was pretty good, and they're rated highly at av-test, so could be worth giving it a go

I have the free version of Avira on my PC. I jumped ships after Avast removed that sexy 'Your virus database has been updated' voices!

[Dashers]

I ran without for years, whenever I ran I usually only got false-positives and obscure alerts for "unwanted" executable files that I most definitely wanted.

I manually scan or run in a read-only sandbox things that come from dodgy sources.

[Ttaskmaster]

Windows Defender with weekly MalWareBytes scans here, too.
The one and only time I ever had a virus/malware that made it through, I got hit with 930 all at once... which was when swapping OSes during the Win10 Upgrade, when there were known problems anyway!

[Dashers]

It's probably worth reiterating best practice advice - make sure you have read only backups, preferably offline of all data you're vaguely interested in keeping. Malware that encrypts everything it can on your network isn't nice but entirely toothless if you can simply rollback to a backup.

[kalniel]

Interesting to find Avira up near the top of the ratings - it used to be my go to about a decade again, then - iirc - I had issues with both system performance and their customer services, and moved away. But my experience with them otherwise was pretty good, and they're rated highly at av-test, so could be worth giving it a go

Before Panda I used to run Avira, but the advertising/notification pop ups got too intrusive/scary for technophobes.

[Deus]

+1 for the built in windows defender. Very straight forward and low fuss. Stays out the way a reasonable amount also.