The protector is not protection. A protector is only a
temporary connection from incoming wire to protection - earth
ground. Ineffective plug-in protector must get the naive to
misunderstand. To use word association to assume a protector
and protection are same thing. Protector is only effective
when it connects 'less than 10 foot' to protection - earth
ground. No earth ground, then no effective protection.

The 'whole house' protector is only called secondary
protection.
Primary protection is provided by AC electric utility. A
homeowner is advised to make a visual inspection of that
utility provided protection. Examples of missing primary
protection are demonstrated:
http://www.tvtower.com/fpl.html
And rules for earthing:
http://www.tvtower.com/grounding_and_bonding.html

Protection being only as effective as the earth ground.
Protector only required when the incoming utility cannot be
hardwired directly to earth. Protector only connects incoming
wire to earth ground during a destructive transient.

LASERandDVDfan wrote:
Thanks to a little thing called the lightning rod invented well
before the 20th Century. Grounding, or earthing as you've put
it, is a simple way of directing lightning to ground and safely
away from anything that could be damaged as you already know.
Without grounding, as you've said, the lightning would simply
find its path to ground through the electronics.

The antenna towers may also double as lightning rods that provide
a path to ground to protect not only the transmission equipment,
but the entire building as well.

But my comment is merely pointing out the misconception by the
general public that home power surge suppressors are effective
against lightning strikes. They are not effective against that
and anyone trusting a surge suppressor over effective grounding,
as you've pointed out and I never mentioned, or disconnection
of devices from the mains deserves to get their equipment
damaged after a storm. - Reinhart