So a few things about me, I am a security enthusiast for a very long time.
I was(and still am) an ESET fanboy (v.2.7 used to rock the world in those years !). I have experienced the norton era ( 10 years ago ) and the slowliness of it.
When I was in high school I got a lot of work to do fixing virused computers in my city and made a name for myself and everybody used to contact me. I used a cd called ultimate boot cd, basically a linux distro with some antivirus programs in it which run directly in RAM, so all the viruses where inactive and you could clean them easily.
Before going to College for an Engineering degree in Computer Science I took some Kaspersky exams and got a few Certifications ( I still have them in my Email but I'm too lazy to search for them) .
6 years ago there was some kind of meeting for security enthusiasts in Rusia at Kaspersky and wanted to go there but I it wasn't the case in the end.
I actively look for security reports at av-comparatives, av-test, vb100 and being from Romania I have had the chance to talk to a few developers at Bitdefender and see a small part of it in action.
In the past I liked Norton a lot because it was very optimized (2010) and the others were not there at that moment. But as time passed and they refused to take tests at av-comparatives they dropped a bit in my eyes.
I used Kaspersky for a while but sometimes I had the feeling that my computer was slowing down (x6 phenom 1090T OC 8gb ram 1600 OC, gtx 660 OC edition , windows installed on a 120 Gb SSD) sometimes when I'm not developing I like to play 1-2 games and I always felt that my FPS dropped a but with KIS, just my opinion.
I don't really surf on dangerous pages, it was a period of 6-7 months when I didn't even had an AV program installed and after that I run a HitmanPro session with no infections, so I think I can manage to not get infected without an AV.
But because I use a lot of credit card action online (payments, refunds, checks and so on) I need to have something so I know I am safe on that matter. Thats the reason I prefer Bitdefender (because it has a sandox safepay) or Kaspersky (for its sandbox I don't remember his name right now) and I quit using ESET because its lack of browser sandbox for internet banking. And I think(and the tests conclude) that Bitdef and Kaspersky have a better detection ratio than ESET.
I have all my AV programs licensed, being a developer I know the effort the people at a company put into an end product and I like to buy the software so I can reward that effort, its all about respect.
I am still not sure about the Kaspersky/Bitdefender/ESET choice but for the browsing I make I am probably good enough without any AV program but I like to feel secure and I have this thing that I can't get rid off that I need to have the best AV program installed on my PC. Thats why I make a lot of research and read a lot of posts on forums, watch comparatives on youtube and so on.
I look forward for your replies and maybe you could help me finalize this inner dispute on these 3 AV programs