though .... its the most common question i have ever heard .... yet no one can tell

IMHO, most companies of AV are highly respected and you can trust their products (Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Avira, Norton, .......)

i agree that kaspersky is on top but any AV need regular update .... without update nothing help

moreover, Kaspersky takes alot of resources which lead to lagging slack ur pc, maybe Avira or Norton would be better choice

if you are paranoid about malware stuff, you have to know what you are surfing, downloading, plugging ...... etc

and use some extra security stuff like outpost firewall, malware defender, threatfire.......

and i recommended to use sandboxie for surfing web and running some suspicious files

(yet you won't be protected 100%)

Hope this help