Comcast users can get free Norton Internet Security Suite (aka Constant Guard) download. Highly rated, works in the background & does maintenance stuff, too.

There's a school of thought that it is wise to minimize the number of add on packages you install, as all software has latent bugs that can lead to hacking vulnerabilities. If you agree, then your answer is just use what is built-in to Windows. Windows Defender has evolved into a reasonably capable feature. I used ESET nod32 anti-virus for many years but recently switched to Windows Defender because I've bought into the minimalist philosophy.
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Bob C

I am not a very big fan of Microsoft. Every other release of the OS is buggy and untested and when the public is done beta testing for them they release a more stable version. I think IE is bloated and disliked Bing. I hated the fact that they made Office 2010 so that it was no one could open a docx or xlsx unless they bought the upgrade. So pretty much I wouldn't trust their antivirus, since they totally dumped Microsoft Security Essentials when they launched Windows Defender.

Your data is encrypted on the cloud with Google, you can make your own copy via a thumb drive.

The hackers would have to get to Google servers to get to their OS code, never happen.

The chromebook may not be for everyone (just like Apple or Microsoft), but, like I said, I use it 99.9% of the time.

Your points are valid but never say never. The Google cloud being hacked is not beyond the realm of possibility and having your data there means you can only access it with an internet connection which could be inconvenient for some. To access on a thumb drive makes it slow. People can encrypt their data on their own machines but are either not technically capable or lazy. I already said in a previous post that I am not a fan of Microsoft or Apple either. My next computer will be Linux.

AVAST twice blocked my firewall as a result of chnages they were making and so i cancelled my subscription they ignored it and charged me for one year. I contested it with my credit card company and won

OK, maybe never was a little strong, how about almost never?
Yes, Linux is very secure, but like I said, 99% of the people in The Villages are not very computer savy, for them the chromebook would be a very good computer.
They are using a computer mostly for Email, reading new articles etc. not saving data.
The biggest problem most people have with their computers is keeping up with updates, something you never have to worry about with chromebook. IT JUST WORKS!
For the more computer savy there is Apple, Microsoft and, of course, Linux.

Yes, I agree with this.

If you subscribe thru Comcast, you can get Norton Security Suite free.

Nortons is a memory hog.:beer3:

True

People will always have opinions on this.

Here is a link to a web site for professionals that independently rate the scanners. Think of it as a consumer reports for virus scanners.

Virus Bulletin :: Latest RAP Quadrant

Those are the current ratings and explanation of their testing methods.

I use Avast without all the extras removed for a nice, lightweight scanner on my personal machine, but you may like another.

Jim

I just converted a Window 7 PC to Linux Mint 18.3. It wasn't very hard, but I never worked with Linux, only Unix back in the '80s.

I'll play with Linux for a while, just to see if I like it. But, I still use my Chromebook 99.9% of the time (which is Linux based, but you don't get stuck in linux stuff).

I prefer the Mint MATE version with the Gnome desktop. Easiest to get to look / work / feel like Windows.

It was Biker Dog. I agree with SFSkol above, use Windows Defender (free with Windows 10) with MalwareBytes. The free version of MalwareBytes is good but you must do scans manually. The paid version $39 per year runs constantly to protect your machine and does not noticeably slow you down.