Do you need a third party anti-virus program?

I made a post to the Pro-Stitcher Sim group about how removing Norton Anti-virus improved the stability of PSP.  There are plenty of people that do not have issues with Norton and I am not going to criticize anyone for using it.  Just make sure that you are getting the updates that come out weekly.  Most companies charge you a subscription charge to keep this up to date.  If you do not update, all you are doing is disabling the native anti-virus program, Defender.  Anti-virus protection goes stale without regular updates.

What has changed over the past year or two is that many established industry nerds are now saying, "You only need to use the native Defender anti-virus in Windows 10."  I have been running my main PC at home without a third party anti-virus program for several years.

So my arguments for avoiding third party anti-virus programs are...

1. Cost.
2. The programs normally effect overall performance.
3. The anti-virus programs can cause issues with other programs.

If you want a free anti-virus, google Avast or AVG.  But even these will nag you to purchase a pay version.  If you have pre-teens and teens using the computer, you should probably pay for additional protection that also include parental monitoring.  

Leave comments below.  "From my keyboard to yours... happy computing."