I've tried most of them, currently on Sophos Home which is really good but I get a lot of false positives. I'm actually getting a bit fed up with the false positives and considering a change. To be fair my son installs a lot of games, many indie ones and they cause the bulk of the false positives. I like that it covers 10 machines on one account.
Bitdefender is pretty much the same as Sophos home. It works really well, I would say it is even more paranoid, even more pushy and over protective, crap load of false positives and they really want you to use all of their features. The whole wallet and safe shopping browser deal.
Commodo does the same thing they want you to use all their software and features. Works pretty well but I had a lot of updates that failed and had to be re-installed. This was several years ago but it pretty much forced me to go find something that ran more smoothly that I could recommend to the less technically savvy.
Kasperky worked well but can you trust them? They have already been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
I only tried NOD32 for a short time, if I remember correctly they didn't offer a multi-machine deal for home users. It seemed okay.
Symantec is GARBAGE, bloatware, runs slow as dirt and takes forever to update. I have spent countless hours cleaning it off machines for people with problems. That goes for PC and Mac users alike.
I haven't used McAfee in years but my past dealings with it alone are enough for me to NEVER try it again. GARBAGE
Panda seemed okay but it lacked some of the features I wanted in the basic package and the full package was expense if I remember correctly.
Before I decided to find a new AV several years ago I used the free Avast. In addition to getting bloated, they became pushy, constantly trying to get you to buy their products. I had dealt with their professional product and the licensing was awful.
AVG used to make a halfway decent product but they have become bloated and unusable too.
I recommend using Windows defender if you don't do a lot of web browsing or if you only go to the same 10 websites and don't use Facebook. If you go beyond that or value security over spending a little money, Sophos home and Bitdfender are both very good products but are a little on the paranoid side. The basic free Sophos home may also be an option, not sure I haven't used it yet. I started with beta testing the original Sophos home product and then the AI enhanced home product so I haven't had to pay for the full product stack yet. Each beta provided me with a free year subscription on top of the 6 months to a year of beta.
The AV comparatives site does give some very valuable information out, it is worth a look.
