Yes they are.
I had no problems like this with XP.
No. Instead you had to deal with anti-virus tools that take over your system almost as bad as a virus itself (norton and mcafee, I'm talking to you). You had to sweep regularly as well with malware tools, firewalls, and other annoyances.
It's a trade off.Linux (and Mac users), largely don't have to deal with any of that.
I find it funny that people are complaining so much about printers, when the vast majority of them are supported, even older ones that MS-Window 7 will never support.
The biggest problem I know of with Linux these days is wireless cards, and even they have come a heck of a long way especially considering so much of the work is the result of some rather painstaking reverse engineering of the hardware. The simplest solution to wireless card issues, is to simply get a supported one. There are many (if not most these days) that are supported right out of the box.