Personally, I use Avast, you get a free and a paid-for licence. Currently I use the free one (and have done so for the past 7 years or so) and have yet to find fault with it. Switching it to "gaming mode" turns off any notifications/sounds that would popup. It hasn't failed me yet. Whenever I suspected something wrong I downloaded the Kaspersky One-time scan, ran that in safe mode, so far it hasn't come up with anything either. (That said, I make a habit of formatting my PC at least every 2 years, so that might squish any of the sneakier buggers) I've had exposure to McAfee and NOD32 as well. McAfee seemingly super-effective finding magical threats to remove at least twice a day, but I kick it out as soon as the trial expires and haven't ever had issues since (went through that on 2 machines). NOD32 is what my workplace uses, and it has yet to disappoint, the only complaint I might have would be the discreet definition update notifications, which I sometimes mistake for an email notification. (Which is, to be honest, a silly complaint and can be easily ignored) Whether or not AVs are still a thing? Depends on the user. I'm too lazy to make sure my PC is airtight manually, so I get someone else's software to do it. Though I generally distrust anything paid-for, because those tend to have the most motivation to make viruses to begin with.