Bitdefender seems to consistently rank high with AV-Comparatives, in their Real-World protection tests:
https://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php
I tried BitDefender a few years back when I bought this computer because I'd heard so much good about it. I liked ESET, but I wasn't married to it, so I figured I'd give BitDefender a try. They don't offer a trial (or at least they didn't back then), but they did offer a money-back guarantee, so I gave it a shot.
I really can't speak for how well it dealt with malware because I didn't do any tests. But I do know it played havoc with other software with which it was unfamiliar, which basically meant anything other than a very few extremely common applications. When it didn't recognize an executable, not only the main executable but any of its child executables had to be whitelisted. I gave up after two days and went back to ESET. BitDefender was just too much of a pain in the ass.
That turned out to be nothing, however, compared to trying to get them to refund my money. I was two days into the 30-day "no questions asked" money back period, but they refused to even consider giving me a refund until I tried their "solution," which was to whitelist every single executable on the computer that BitDefender didn't recognize as safe.
I didn't have time for that ****. I also didn't have time to deal with BitDefender. So I called USAA (the credit card issuer) and let them duke it out with BitDefender. I think it took about 30 seconds for them to resolve the dispute in my favor once I sent them a link to the "30-day Money-Back Guarantee" page on BitDefender's site.
As for the rest, in my experience, antivirus companies and products all seem to have their "golden ages." I've used most of them over the years and have no special loyalty to any of them. I use them while I think they're the best overall solution for me, and when that changes, I use something else.
I like ESET because it has a small footprint and better than 99 percent real-world effectiveness. It's certainly never missed anything in my real-world experience. Of course, I'm a low-risk user; but all the clients on whose computers I've installed it over the years still seem happy with it (at least the ones I still keep in touch with, anyway), so I have to say that their "golden age" has lasted much longer than most.
If I had to choose an alternative, it would be Trend Micro. I used it for years but dumped it maybe 10 years ago because it got bloated and unstable. The new versions, however, seem to have fixed all those problems. It's definitely what I would try if I had to find an alternative to ESET today.
As for Webroot, I tried it many years ago and didn't like it, for reasons similar to the problems I had with BitDefender. The heuristics were just
too sensitive and messed with too much of my FOSS stuff. I have no idea whether that's still an issue. I also suspect it wouldn't be an issue anyway if all a person uses is well-known software.
Rich