kaspersky is a good choice (personally i dont like it) but based in your criteria "based on its quality, not necessarily based on whether you like it or not", after all if you set up properly the product them you would get a solid stone in security... KSN is good at catching unknown malware (however be sure to disable download rules from the cloud as they may allow PUP to run) system watch is a good plus also, as you may set up allow or deny rules from each application... in general a good choice, the counter part is that kaspersky is known to eat a lot of resources, and well i dont like the way how they deal with active malware... beside from that it is a good product.
As for ESET i do like them because every product they make is light.... it has a high detection rate plus a good cloud (which sometimes is useless) the bad point here is, when you find an unknown malware, eset would just allow it, well you have HIPS, but if you think you can deal with eset HIPS then i would suggest you to use comodo or private firewall they may give you a superior protection... good signatures, good customer support
As for norton, well recently i heard they focus on their cloud detections and being honest if you are offline you would have a bad time... Sonar may help you, but if is like playing russian roulette plus the fact they have very low detection rates in the wild, and from my personal experience i would go away from them
Emsisoft well, despite the fact some people claim about slowdown, me as an EAM user i may say that the product is light and simple, i like simple things, my advice is to test EAM instead of EIS, they have good signatures, good costumer support, they are a small company if you have a problem you can reach them any time, BB is excellent and well it is simple, you dont have to deal with difficult settings or something you wouldnt use as a normal user...
The point here is not the suite, the point it is you as user... do you really need all the features that kaspersky offers you? do you know how to deal with eset HIPs module? and well, that is why i choose emsisoft, they may have some bugs but after all they offer you what you need, believe me if you are a general manager at the central bank in your country then go for kaspersky, but if you are a regular user, then go for something simple, easy to understand, because there is no sense to have something you would never use or understand... by the way, do you really need a firewall? do you connect in public areas? like mall, airport or so on? chances are that you are at home most of the time and you are behind a router, the you dont need a firewall unless you usually go out.
