Hmmm as the others have noted - we will all have our favorites. As I work in IT I get to see a lot of products. A few general comments.
1. At a minimum you need a anti spayware and anti malware products. If they do not auto update - they are worthless. I make a lot of side line $$$ from people who tell me "I ment to do the updates" (thanks you you lazy peeps - my cigar budget loves you).
2. Norton - industry standard to which "most" try to compare against. Has the "name" along with McAffee. Last Enterprise version has a lot of memory leaks and error messages. Pricey as you pay for the name.
3. McAffee - never have liked it or it's interface. Again a big name and pricey IMO.
4. The free AVG stuff.... never messed with it to much.
5. I use Trend Mico at the house - nice Anti-virus and Anti Malware in a bundle. Price is not to bad either. Takes care of business with a minimum interfacing and nag screens. Never been hit in 4 years using it unless I was dloading stuff I was pretty sure was infected. Even then it protected me although it wasn't happy
6. Most of my current work is clearing out malware not viruses any more. Spybot used to be my goto but in the past few years has really fallen by the way side and is not near as effective as it used to be. As mentioned above - Malwwarebytes is pretty damn good. Better if you go paid if this is to be your only AM software. There are other tools in the bag but Malwarebytes is gets most of the bad stuff.
BTW, no such thing as free. That coupon bar, catchy little screen saver, etc are out there for a reason. At $30 an hour I only work 2 hours to clean a PC. If I can't get it in 2, I stop and try to work out a deal on a reload. Between scans, reboots, downloading special removers, the reload will give you a faster and a 100% clean machine.
None of the software is ever a 100%, too many independent tests have shonw this. Some are better than others and there is always the window of time between the release of a new virus/malware and the downloading of the update..... my
, YMMV.