Antivirus software and viruses/malware are in a whack-a-mole situation, but that doesn't mean using antivirus is not giving you a benefit at all. It comes different when the user trying to be a power user or bypassing the antivirus security system due to might be a false flag or just simply an ignorance. A malware that is fashioned to be an antivirus is surely an ironic thing, but one can try to find a reputable and battle-tested antivirus officially, to prevent those kinds of things.
What i mean is that windows own anti-virus system is so powerful at this point that i wouldn't recommend a 3rd party system messing things up. That's all i am saying. But there's no system that would keep users safe when users see warnings as false positives and launch .exes anyway that antivirus tries to block.
Just NOT downloading any weird obscure software keeps newbs way safer than any 3rd party free or paid antivirus software out there. It's really hard to build idiot-proof systems when the idiots have a say what's better for their data safety.
