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I switched to Linux years ago and have never had a problem. Of course, Windows programs won't run on it, but there are ways around that if you know how*, and mostly the Linux substitutes are as good (for routine purposes) and in some cases better ... at least in my experience. And it has all been completely free!
That's probably more than you want, but one of the main strengths of Linux is its relative security - it's not utterly impervious to vulnerability, but, IMO and that of many others I know, it's a couple of orders of magnitude better than Windows, particularly if you use a feature called Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux).
For astronomy software, you'll probably still need Windows, but you could set up "dual-boot" where you no longer use Windows online, just for astro, and leave the dangerous online stuff to Linux. You can still get Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel natively in Linux, though.
* Some programs run well in a Windows emulator called Wine (and some don't), whereas I prefer to use a virtual machine (in a program called VirtualBox, which is free, though you'll still need a license for Windows inside the virtual machine) that'll run just about anything. The downside is accelerated 3D stuff, such as games, which need both direct hardware access and the Windows APIs, so they won't work well, if at all, in a virtual machine.
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