It sucks that you cannot reset your Windows to MS-Vendor settings.

For example if you get some Acer laptop and reset it using windows built-in functionality it'll still reset it with all the bloatware - including AV.

This should do it:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10s...

They've had similar tools since at least Windows 7 IIRC, if not XP - you've just always had to download them separately, and they've never been advertised with much enthusiasm. Probably trying to strike a balance between pleasing power-users and keeping the bundled-bloatware ecosystem happy, seeing as MS benefit financially from both.

Interesting, I will try this on my laptop this week and will report if it will work.

Can't you just download a pristine Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft's website and install from that? I've done that on my Dell Precision and it works great.

You can! Just make sure it's the exact same edition and language that came with the laptop. It will just pick up the OEM key from the ACPI table.

The problem is that if it's not the same edition as is pre-installed you will lose your OEM license.

Microsoft released a tool[0] that does exactly that

[0]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10s...

Uh, yes you can. Couple weeks ago I reset my Windows 10 MSI laptop to a clean state using nothing but Windows itself. Somewhere in Windows 10 restore options there's an option to format your HD and install only Windows and nothing else. You don't need a DVD nor a USB drive. A click of a button and off you go.

Didn't work for me.

For instances where it's not worth the time to reformat, I've always liked PC Decrapifier. Hard to forget the name once you've heard it :D

https://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

Yes, that was the point of the "Signature Windows" series laptops, which looked promising but didn't seem to actually go anywhere...

Windows 8/10 with the MS built-in protection or Linux + clamav

Sometimes I used CClenaer and/or Spybot to deal with something really nasty, but the MS stuff really does a good job (Someone checked if the hell is frozen now ?)

Which AV vendors are predatory? (Though Kaspersky makes me nervous).

What do you think about ESET?

I have 150 ish machines on eset across a few different clients, obviously my experience with it has been very good over the years in all aspects. Eset don't offer the biggest margins but I stick with them because it doesn't cause support issues and I can count the number of infected eset machines I've had to deal with on one hand.

McAfee in particular aggressively pushes "free trials" (often getting them bundled into the installers of unrelated software) that will then show scarily-worded warnings encouraging you to buy once the trial has expired.

I recommend going by test results and by the features that interest you most.

Kaspersky, BTW, has the best scores (See here: https://bestantivirus.reviews/tools/test-results-calculator) but Bitdefender and Avira are also great according to these tests, and Bitdefender is my choice, personally.

Kaspersky just worries me because of the Russian connections https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-19/cybersecu...

It's sort of like Cloudflare protecting against DDoS attacks while also protecting booters.

My advice is similar these days when someone is buying a new PC, with the additional push that everyone should buy a "Signature Edition" PC [1]. Microsoft requires "Signature Edition" machines to be sold without additional software/bloatware. Friends/relatives can most easily buy such PCs from the Microsoft Store, but also some Best Buys and office stores will sell them if you ask.

[1] https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/categor...

What stops majority of bad software for my family is disabling administrator account. They don't care installing patches and antivirus updates anyways.