Each to their own, but it doesn't have to be that way:
I have used Bitdefender free for years without any viruses:
Download the free Bitdefender antivirus software to effectively scan and clean your computer. Enjoy basic virus protection totally free!
www.bitdefender.co.uk
Find the best programs like Microsoft Jigsaw for Windows 10 for Windows. More than 27 alternatives to choose: Magic Jigsaw Puzzles, Jigsaws Galore Fr
microsoft-jigsaw-windows-10.en.softonic.com
(although included in Win 10 Defender could be enough for most)
Cant vouch for the all their suggestion, but my daughter loved the
Tuxmath and
Tuxtype ones when she was a nipper:
Find the best programs like Microsoft Jigsaw for Windows 10 for Windows. More than 27 alternatives to choose: Magic Jigsaw Puzzles, Jigsaws Galore Fr
microsoft-jigsaw-windows-10.en.softonic.com
Tux paint as well
tuxpaint.org
Lots of good educational type but fun games all her friends use(d)
https://www.friv.com/
Pretty much everything that you pay for you can find in free (not just no money - see FOSS below) versions
'Adobe Lightroom'
www.digikam.org
darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer
www.darktable.org
'Evernote'
Joplin, the open source note-taking application
joplinapp.org
'Photoshop'
GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program: The Free and Open Source Image Editor
www.gimp.org
Adobe Illustrator - Vector drawing
Inkscape is professional vector graphics software which runs on Linux, macOS and Windows desktop computers.
inkscape.org
Microsoft Office
Free office suite – the evolution of OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx. Updated regularly, community powered.
www.libreoffice.org
Google Chrome
MS Edge
Faster page loading, less memory usage and packed with features, the new Firefox is here.
www.mozilla.org
Even for my research work:
There is even free CAD stuff:
FreeCAD, the open source 3D parametric modeler
www.freecadweb.org
In the stats part of my research I was put onto 'R' which all the Uni researchers now use instead of the very expensive commercial stuff
www.r-project.org
instead of Mendeley or MS OneNote
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.
www.zotero.org
Excellent app for editing PDF's (no Adobe!)
PDFill FREE PDF Tools to merge, split, reorder, delete, encrypt, decrypt, rotate, crop and reformat PDF pages, to add information, header, footer and watermark, to convert images to PDF, PDF to images or PostScript to PDF, to delete, flatten and list form fields, to scan to pdf, to create...
www.pdfill.com
etc etc etc
At home, I use everything free and open source - I just dont need to pay for software
Actually I would and do pay (see below), its not just the paying, its the ever omre efficient machine of syphoning off all of the resources of the world into the hands of a ridiculously small percentage of us who are obscenely rich, and now we are beginning to wake up to the fact that they are not only breaking all the laws but also destroying the planet.
Every so often, especially if I use it a lot - I donate so that this type of 'for the better' thing doesnt die (or get scoffed by a big fat corporate monster until we only have one big evil overlord, ooooopps! nearly there)
Imagine if loads of people got together on the internet and made software and maintained it for themselves and humanity in general without charging a penny...
Then many projects would have thousands of the best devs in the world working for free ...
en.wikipedia.org
You dont even need windows:
Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.
linuxmint.com
Ubuntu is an open source software operating system that runs from the desktop, to the cloud, to all your internet connected things.
ubuntu.com
And dont believe anyone who tells you these days that you have to be tech savvy to use any of the above
And I can tell you that a community forum is 10 times better than a commercial 'support desk'
Surely that is evident from this site?
Yes, I am a 54 year old naive teenager at heart
But, yes, it appears at face value to be easier to just stump up
EDIT - I realise that I should say that not all the above is 100% FOSS, but you dont have to be totally FOSS