Not only should you get rid of them, but also they are a fire hazard.

Also, do not accidentally plug surge protectors into each other, metal oxide varistors can star fires _without_ meaningful surge conditions when you do so.

I prefer to buy products without MOVs entirely due to the risk, with the exception of one, Tripp Lite Isobars; but I prefer to use series mode protectors such as Brickwall or SurgeX.

This. Same timeframe and I've lived through both lots of lightning storms and in areas with lots of power failures. Some of them intermittent and essentially caused by transformers blowing up. Like earlier this winter, we had multiple storms where you'd hear a transformer blow up, in many cases even seeing the sky light up as well from it, power going out, couple seconds, power coming back, next transformer blowing out, rinse, repeat.

On the other hand I've read about plenty of stories of the "cheap" UPSs you'd usually buy as a consumer (not to name any brands coz I've never had any) actually causing such issues in the first place. Without any actual surges from the grid.

That said, being totally not superstitious (for real, but someone's gonna "kill me" if they find out I wrote this and something dies from a surge...), now I guess I need to knock on wood like seventeen times ...

I do use surge protectors when we're on generator power temporarily.

When I lived in Costa Rica, I lost three surge protectors in a year to power surges. During one such power surge, I didn't notice that the red light indicating surge protection was already out, and a power surge fried my (knockoff) Macbook power adapter, leaving me without a way to work for a day.

Not too bad, just rural. We used to lose stuff every 10 years or so.

One day The Big One came along and fried nearly everything. "Once burned, twice shy."

Hopefully someone can learn from my mistake and not have to do it post-mortem.

If your close neighbours have surge protectors then you benefit little from installing your own.