The typical consumer Windows antivirus was designed to solve a different set of problems in a different environment and analysing files for signatures and behaviors against known threats was very valuable when so many people were running executables from unsafe sources intentionally or not. Even on Windows an antivirus has never been the best way to secure a machine. It was always the lowest common denominator solution that you put on everyone’s machine because it was better than nothing.

Linux has been well served for a long time by the division or privileges between root and users and signed trusted distro sources. The linux desktop is trending towards containerized flatpak applications running in seperate namespaces with additonal protection via seccomp. Try and understand the protections Linux provides and how to best take advantage of them first and only reach for an antivirus if you still think it is needed.