I saw fvwm in a magazine and it had a really cool 3D look to it and I wanted that. I had never seen anything like that. We were very poor and I only had an old computer, a 486, so it was either pirate software (and there was no version of Windows in our language) or use Linux.
I ended up on Red Hat from a magazine and then later Slackware. I liked Window Maker so I stayed on that for two decades. Learning Linux gave me a constructive hobby, introduced me to free software philosophy, and gave me technology skills. We moved to the United States. When I was 15 or 16, I helped a college math professor install hardware on Linux. When he found out that I was dropping out of a very racist high school, he provided support and I ended up graduating from their college. Those Linux skills came in handy and helped start a career.
I have only ever used Windows to upgrade firmware on a laptop or to download an ISO so I could replace Windows. Like everyone else, I was enamoured with macOS back in the 2000’s but couldn’t afford one and when I finally could, it couldn’t do sloppy focus and that was a pet peeve of mine so I just returned it and got a used ThinkPad.
I moved back to Asia. Now I use sway on Debian and get to ride my bicycle to work and my kids grow up better than I did, so life is good.
Install the apparmor profiles and extra profiles packages from the apt repository. They are sensible restrictions on common apps (web browsers) to prevent anything malicious from happening if they are ever hijacked. Make sure apparmor is enabled. This will do more to keep you secure than an antivirus.
If you insist on an AV, install ClamAV and have it scan weekly. It’s libre software and works well with Linux.