There's no better time to make sure you are safe and secure in your online life than now; while the proprietary vendors say that you are extra super safe, why take their words for it? Just a quick read or two and you can put your fears to rest. If you are worried about this being overly technical, miles above your head (you're one of those people whose VHS clocks were always flashing), then there is Wubi; and starting with Hardy Heron, it will be fully supported. If you are happy with what you've got, then this diary probably has little of interest to you; since I began writing these early last year I've been hanging around on the Freenode IRC channels helping others out, so if you have any questions, then please feel free to ask away.
One of the foremost reasons folks these days have for not switching to a free, safe, open source, non-vendor locked-in solution is that either they have some games they like to play, Photoshop won't work for them, or they cannot get wireless working. If your main concern is that there are too many choices, then best take a look at Baskin-Robbins; last time I looked, they had more than one flavor. Heh.
The fact is, that it has never been easier to either dual (or even triple) boot with your favorite proprietary OS, or just simply go fully native; there is absolutely nothing you cannot accomplish in a FOSS environment as compared to the locked-in version. Download an iso, burn it to CD (isorecorder2 for Windows, Disk Utility for Mac, K3b/Brasero for Linux), boot into the live cd (which nearly ever single FOSS OS has these days--even Slackware), see how well it matches your needs and recognizes your hardware, then click install; the installer will see whatever other systems you have on that particular machine and allow you to resize their disk partitions, and within a matter of twenty minutes or so will give you a fully secure, Free and Open Source Software system for you to use. In a FOSS environment, the bots work for you and not against you.
Whatever your needs, from a huge supercomputer, to the lowly eeepc, FOSS has something for you; why not try it out today and make a difference? A difference in security, in the environment, in the move for greater freedom and transparency. Join the community and contribute your ideas and knowledge.
A case in point would be a recent trial install of the latest Alpha (6) build of Hardy Heron, the successor to Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, due out in a little more than a month. Downloading the iso, burning it to disk, installing it in a dual boot (other Linux distribution correctly recognized and scooched over) took a grand total of thirty minutes from clicking download to logging in to the newly installed system. Had I merely been running the liveCD portion and not reinstalling it would have been less than 15 minutes all told. If you cannot spare 15 minutes from your busy schedule to check out something that will significantly upgrade your computing security and general online experience then you are way busier then me. A closer look at the latest build in another diary coming soon, in both Gnome and KDE flavors.
I will add more to this diary as time allows, or if enough people tell me to post it on Arstechica/slashdot; feel free to boycott, however. ;] If you have any support type questions I am available both here and in the freenode IRC channels, will do my level best to answer any issues you may be having. Thanks for reading.