Nothing comes for free. Data collection is what you have to agree to first. I'm not sure what Trend Micro does better in Asuswrt - usage data collection to improve their commercial paid services or free lifetime user data protection. I personally don't like this type of 3rd party involvement.
It has saved me several times throughout the years.
Blocking malware and malicious sites where I had first done a lot of research about websites and software.
So I was very happy at these times to be saved by Trend Micro. I do not know if Bitdefender would have saved me anyway though.
In my work I have implemented Trend Micro for some customers. In my opinion they belong in the top 5 for malware and virus blocking.
The others I would pick are Kaspersky, Bitdefender and Sophos.
About privacy on the internet I have no illusions at all.
I would be surprised if not all internet traffic got decrypted somewhere.
This can be easily done through port replication to dedicated SSL inspection devices, that send suspicious packages to analyzers and block known issues. This can be done without man-in-the-middle re-encryption, like before.
It is one of the ways CyberSecurity products protect all traffic for enterprises against known malware and viruses and also heuristic threats. This could be done inside TOR also by anyone that has access there and sufficient resources.
The important things are, to minimize the access to your data on the way to its destination and minimize unencrypted traffic. Do not use TOR. Do not send DNS requests unencrypted over the internet.
Do not use public WiFi without SSL connection. Also make sure to use 2FA for anything that has access to private stuff and money. And try to prevent 2FA bypass hacks.
If I would use payed VPN, it would probably be ProtonVPN. Nord VPN got hacked before and Express VPN is now owned by an adware provider. Double encryption is nice.