If you watch the "rankings" frequently published by tech media, you'll know that no AV program stays at the top of the list for very long. The better selection method is to look for one that stays consistently near the top over a longer time.

AVG has bounced between "best" and "unacceptable" in some lists over the past year or so. There seems also to have been a chasm opening between the "free" version(s) and the better paid version. Ratings for the paid AVG versions reviewed have remained good enough to be "probably acceptable" so far as I've noticed, but there have been few recent recommendations for the freeby. Not all reviews tell you clearly whether they're talking about the free or paid version(s).

So far as I've seen reports on it, Microsoft runs their "Malware Remover" pretty much with every patch download. The Remover gives them a good report of what malware is in current circulation so that their more general protection utilities can concentrate on what's a real and current threat. There have been objections that they may miss some "old stuff," that seems to circulate forever from reservoirs of infected machines that never run anything; but the objections have been "pretty weak," for the current Microsoft protection kits. The Microsoft stuff appears to be a lot better than it was some months ago when it was considered "bare essentials" protection.

A difficulty we run into now is "too many" sources that want to "automatically add" their defenses for you, so it's easy to get protectors protecting you from your other protections.

John