You do know that Windows Defender is an Anti-virus software?
Yes, very good. And if you can recognize that you'd understand why a second is even less necessary. As a broad category, yes, anti-viruses are massively unnecessary for your average user. This includes Windows Defender. But if you did have to run one, I'd pick Defender because it's on your machine whether you like it or not. Unless you're on Linux / Apple, in which case I have no idea why you'd even be here.
You generally don't need an anti-virus because in this day and age any kind of risky behavior is better headed off by using a sand box or a burner machine. You're running unsigned software, from an untrusted source, lets not be silly.
You're nice to assume that they are using a two digits version of Windows...
If you're running anything older than 10, it's probably bootleg (no judgement here) to begin with and you should already be in the practice of doing things like clean installs and not doing anything that'd cause heartburn when you have to start over from scratch. The loss of performance- especially if you're trying to run a modern anti-virus on old hardware- just isn't worth trying to run one, never mind TWO, anti-viruses on your computer.
You've read his post, and still have to ask?
The people who latch onto any lapse of logic, even where it doesn't exist, are always the least fun to engage with.
You do not need an anti-virus. Your anti-virus will not save you from yourself. If you're engaging in deliberately risky behavior online, an anti-virus generally wont help you. Your best courses of action are sand box environments or a burner machine because all a modern anti-virus is going to do is tell you that the software is unsigned and can't be trusted and then you'll say, "OK, run it anyways" because that's what this website trained you to do.
McAfee wont help you there. Neither will Kapersky. The files in question will be too novel for Virus Total to recognize them. You should get help if you think Norton is worth it. So you're installing software on your computer to make it run worse so that it can tell you, "This program looks suspicious." Which is an utterly meaningless gesture because you're going to run it anyways. And for that, yeah, Windows Defender is made by the people who administrate the software signing service for Windows so it's both the best at it and the one you already have. I personally don't run it because it's massively unnecessary, but for the average end user who I can't vouch for in terms of security awareness and internet hygiene, yeah. Windows Defender is sufficient.
And I'm happy if the malware that I may have is on a system level that I have fully access to and can purge and it is not on one that even admin/root have no access to it.
If you run a variety of modern games on your machine you already have a kernel level backdoor installed in the form of most commonly available kernel level anti-cheats. This is why I harp on about virtual machines, sandboxes and burner machines as much as I do. Expecting an anti-virus to keep you safe is incredibly naive. On a long enough timeline, your machine will be compromised. Wasting system resources on an anti-virus that wont protect you from it is foolish at best. And at worst it'll give someone a false sense of security and make them an easy target. I have dealt with far too many customers who did the, "But I'm paying for (insert commonly pushed AV service like McAfee or Norton) and it says I'm protected!" thing.
Ironically in your day-to-day activities the thing that will protect you the best is a web browser that lets you control what scripts are run and has an ad blocker.
