Yesterday avast! anti-virus protected me from an attack when I clicked on a bad link. Later that day I installed Malwarebytes and removed several more suspicious files. Before I used these products I was using Windows Defender. The reason I stuck with Defender instead of Norton --which was provided free with our family's subscription to Comcast-- is because it was recommended by one of our local experts, and I do trust this person's judgement.

I am a bit of a glutton to try new software, and personally I am not the most trusting of Microsoft to protect my stuff. Since my computer was clearly affected, I am now a bit uncertain if I am currently using the best software. What do you recommend I use? Whatever it is, it has to be for free, and it must deal with either viruses, malware, or both.

I usually use Avast! Anti-virus and Malwarebytes Anti-malwares. I don't know anything about that type of softwares though so I can't be a huge help in this situation, man :/

Since no one else is replying, I'll see if I can help.

No one can really tell you which one is the "best". Defender, Norton, and Avast!, and Malwarebytes are well known, so they will have the most updated definitions, so don't try any other lesser name than these.

Also Defender may not have caught some of the "suspicious" files, simply because it deemed them safe or because you didn't run a complete computer scan whereas the Malwarebytes did have the complete scan. In other words, you can't really say that one virus scanner is better than another simply because it picks up more stuff. It may be deleting perfectly harmless files.

From what I'm reading you are using more than one virus scanner at a time which may just hurt your computer's performance and the virus scanners may pick up each other's files as "suspicious" so you have to be careful about that.

Also, virus scanning is always a gamble, but with these best softwares you have the best chance, I repeat "chance", of preventing viruses, but that's the best you can do on that end. Otherwise you just have to be more careful about what you download and open.

I hope this helped you in some way or another.

EideticMemory : As far as I know I am not using more than one antivirus at a time unless Malwarebytes does more than just scan for malware. I apologize if my original post lead you to think that.

Defender is a streaming pile. It's also preinstalled so Hackers tend to build code with it in mind. Iv seen a virus disable it and, via a replicated interface, tell the user to pay for a renewal.
It's always installed in the same place, far too easy to target.
I use Norton. IT's resource heavy but regularly updated. Never Had an issue.
Mcafee is also popular. Avast is the best free one.
They Should all be good enough if you're sensible anyway. Since free is your criteria you're as well sticking with avast

Honestly, I think anti-virus causes more problems than it prevents. I never use anti-virus of any kind and have never had any problems. My mom has Avast, and whenever she goes online her screen is full of Avast popups, popup ads, and Avast will randomly redirect you to an unrelated website sometimes instead of going to the one that you clicked on. When I go on Vizzed, the only ads are the ones that are strategically placed around the site. When I go on Vizzed on my mom's computer, there are ads in every corner, advertising everything under the sun.

If you are really concerned about viruses, use Norton or something. Norton is still worse than nothing in my opinion, but it is better than Avast.