Microsoft ended so called 'Mainstream Support' for Windows 7 back in January 2015!
Windows 7 is currently on 'Extended Support' from Microsoft. This means that updates only address essential security issues. No new 'features' are being added.
However this Extended Support will end for most non corporate users on 14th January 2020, when the OS will be declared 'EOL' (End Of Life) and no further support of any kind will be provided for the OS.
Corporate users can elect to pay for continued security updates for up to three years after the above date, but it will be costly!
For the rest of us, even though MS is going to produce security updates for these 'paying' corporate users, home users will not be able to get them, even if they are willing to pay! Presumably in doing this, Microsoft are trying to 'intimidate' users into switching to Windows 10!
Therefore continuing to use the OS will be at our own risk if any major security hole is discovered, and let's face it, it is not unknown for this to happen with Microsoft OS, even years after their initial release!
Anti Virus/Malware Protection suites can only do so much, especially when 'zero day' vulnerabilities and exploits arise, and can/do get things wrong, but are better than nothing if you insist on continuing to use the internet with an unsupported OS.
However if you only intend to visit so called 'trusted sites' and use common sense when doing so, you will probably be OK. Unfortunately hackers seem to be coming up with more and more exploits which make use of security holes in OS or even in chipsets! Furthermore because of the huge number of people still using Windows 7, the end of security updates for most of us will make the OS an attractive 'target' for hackers.
I have just purchased a new laptop with Windows 10 installed and (as expected) I don't like it much. I have tried to make it look as much like Windows 7 as I can. The first thing that I did was to get rid of the 'live tiles' and other animations, which I find really irritating and distracting. I have turned off as much of the 'spying' functions and telemetry as I can, in the knowledge that almost certainly, MS will probably check and turn them back on with each (non optional!) update! Even with them turned off, I'm sure that a company as unethical as Microsoft is still harvesting plenty of data about me, even though I haven't created an account with them! Of course, let's face it, I use Google Chrome as my browser and search engine so they will already have most of the information anyway!
However in spite of the above, with the end of W7 support looming, I am going to continue with W10 on the new laptop, leaving W7 on my others for now at least!
Regards
Ian