First, prepare to be flamed as a likely ideal representation of users discussed in the article.
Second, at least you're asking, so that's progress.
Third, ditch that bloatware McAfee, but don't think that Norton/Symantec will be any slimmer.
Fourth, there is no "best" choice. Each is a compromise between speed, size, price, frequency of updates, effectiveness at detecting a variety of categories of bad things, minimizing false positives (where it mistakenly tells you that a safe file is unsafe), supported operating systems, and on and on and on. There are likely a few that will suit your needs well.
When researching, which we know you intend to do thoroughly, be sure to note the date of any reviews or comparisons. There's lots of old info still online, and this industry can change very rapidly.
That said, I currently like and use Avast on Windows.