In my order by protection it would be, kaspersky, emsisoft, eset
1. kaspersky
good web protection
good sigs/cloud protection
good firewall
great BB, system watcher etc
has some other features as well like application control etc that can harden the system more
Bit more heavy on system depends on system but protection is top notch
Emsisoft
Great BB
Weaker web protection
Uses 2 engines bitdefender and there own so sigs are good
Last time i tested it a year ago it was slowing down my system.
ESET
very light
Great web protection
Good firewall with some features
Great sigs as they update them very fast and they have a cloud to.
Weak 0 day protection, even tho you can have HIPS on interactive and firewall to if your advanced and it is more than enough and great protection
ESET can be very strong indeed with some tweaking along with there fast updates on sigs, cloud protection, firewall being very light for me personally its my top spot but out of the box settings it wont compete with 0 day malware like them other 2