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The truth is: It really doesn't matter. That's true for two reasons:
First: While on any given day, antivirus "A" will beat antivirus "B" in independently-conducted tests, antivirus "B" could be back on top on another day. The fact is, most antivirus applications are equally effective at what they do, including Windows Defender, and Windows Defender doesn't have any special advantage because it comes from Microsoft. Microsoft certainly knows Windows better than anyone else, but they don't have any more insight into a hacker's plans than anyone else.
Today, your choice of antivirus application comes down whether you like the user interface, or what additional utilities are included, or how user-friendly the support is, or how well you understand what it's doing. If, after looking around, you decide that you like Windows Defender, then go for it. It's fine software. I happen to prefer Bitdefender, but I have no doubt that Windows Defender would protect my computer just as well.
Second - and much more important: Today, the percentage of successful attacks that are caused by traditional viruses and trojans is very small. I'm not saying that antivirus software isn't important - we need to give ourselves every advantage - just that you are less likely to be attacked in that manner. This is another reason why you shouldn't sweat over which antivirus application to choose, and to choose mostly on the basis of convenience features.
If your computer does get infected with a virus, it probably came from an amateur or from someone who bought a kit on the internet. Today's professional malware writers learned long ago to work around traditional antivirus applications. In fact, study after study shows that the overwhelming number of successful attacks were caused because of social engineering - people were simply fooled into allowing the malware onto their computer. The cybersecurity profession has a saying: Attackers don't break in, they log in.
So while antivirus software certainly has its place, it's much more important to learn how to avoid becoming socially engineered.
