Antivirus software - do you still need to buy it?

[NImumconfused]

Hi, hoping for some advice from people who know more about these things than me (not difficult)!

Buying a new laptop for my teenager, is Microsoft Defender good enough? I'd always been under the impression you needed to buy antivirus software from eg McAfee, but has the free option improved to be comparable?
TIA

Defender is sufficient, just tell hime not to install any pirated software, it often has nasties in it.

Thanks, she's way too cautious for that so we should be good!

I paid £12.99 for Norton's at Costco as I'm very cautious indeed.

This video discusses Defender.

Defender is fine.

Many moons ago, Defender was a little known, but good third party Anti-Virus, better than Norton & McAfee.

At the time, Microsoft were getting stick for letting viruses in like a sieve. So they bought Defender and started incorporating it into Windows.

Norton & McAfee are known as bloatware - they do little except slow the computer down.

If there's any third-party antivirus like McAfee, you should uninstall it as it can disrupt the scans. Think of it almost like a virus itself! Useless.

Now and then, you can run a Malwarebytes scan as an extra. It's a free download

www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download

I have never bought it. When I used to use PCs, if I ever got anything nasty, I'd just wipe the drive. All my important things were on external drives. Now I use Apple only so they are less likely to get viruses. In fact, I've never knowingly had one.

Thanks all for the advice.

Norton 360 vs Defender

https://www.safetydetectives.com/blog/windows-defender-vs-antiviruses-is-defender-enough-for-you/

Yet.......

Well they don’t scare me. But I’m more tech savvy than most, I suppose.

My macs have all been fine. I’ve had three MacBooks and an iMac. No viruses. My PC on the other hand…. The constant bloody updates. The slowness. Which was due to software, not hardware as I built it myself.

If I went back to gaming, I’d have to get another, but otherwise, I’d always use macs.