This is my advice to everyone I know that gets a new Windows PC. Windows 10's built-in protection is more than adequate, and catches the majority of bad software - anything more is unnecessary, and many of the AV vendors are predatory.
They've had similar tools since at least Windows 7 IIRC, if not XP - you've just always had to download them separately, and they've never been advertised with much enthusiasm. Probably trying to strike a balance between pleasing power-users and keeping the bundled-bloatware ecosystem happy, seeing as MS benefit financially from both.
Can't you just download a pristine Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft's website and install from that? I've done that on my Dell Precision and it works great.
Uh, yes you can. Couple weeks ago I reset my Windows 10 MSI laptop to a clean state using nothing but Windows itself. Somewhere in Windows 10 restore options there's an option to format your HD and install only Windows and nothing else. You don't need a DVD nor a USB drive. A click of a button and off you go.
Windows 8/10 with the MS built-in protection or Linux + clamav
Sometimes I used CClenaer and/or Spybot to deal with something really nasty, but the MS stuff really does a good job (Someone checked if the hell is frozen now ?)
I have 150 ish machines on eset across a few different clients, obviously my experience with it has been very good over the years in all aspects. Eset don't offer the biggest margins but I stick with them because it doesn't cause support issues and I can count the number of infected eset machines I've had to deal with on one hand.
McAfee in particular aggressively pushes "free trials" (often getting them bundled into the installers of unrelated software) that will then show scarily-worded warnings encouraging you to buy once the trial has expired.
My advice is similar these days when someone is buying a new PC, with the additional push that everyone should buy a "Signature Edition" PC [1]. Microsoft requires "Signature Edition" machines to be sold without additional software/bloatware. Friends/relatives can most easily buy such PCs from the Microsoft Store, but also some Best Buys and office stores will sell them if you ask.
What stops majority of bad software for my family is disabling administrator account. They don't care installing patches and antivirus updates anyways.
