Hello, I only just checked in to the bitcoin world again to check on our coins, and I learn that Multibit is over and I should move to something newer, like Electrum.
With help from this forum, I seem to have moved our BTC to Electrum, using an older version of Electrum. It now shows our address but has been 'synchronising' for hours.
Try clicking the little coloured bubble at the bottom right and select another server by left clicking it and selecting use as server. The server you're using might not be working.
Does it need to finish synchronising to complete the migration? I do not like to keep it online for any longer than necessary.
Not really. If you know which are the addresses that contains the Bitcoins, you can just go to coinb.in/#newTransaction and create a new transactions from your addresses to another address. You will be given an unsigned transaction and you can simply go to Tools>Load transaction>From text and paste your raw unsigned transaction. Validate the information shown by Electrum and broadcast it on coinb.in/#broadcast. You can send it to your hardware wallet or whatever.
My first question is ... am I now safely moved to Electrum, if it is showing our address on the send/receive window? It does not show a balance like Multibit used to. Blockchain.com shows the full balance that should be there, but it is not clear if I can still send funds.
Its not fully synchronized yet but you can send funds.
Also, I feel I should be paying more attention to security; can anyone recommend a hardware key, like Keepkey or Ledger? I keep the laptop concerned offline most of the time. What is the risk?
Ledger is a decent hardware wallet if you are willing to pay the price. Otherwise, I trust my cheap little raspberry pi with Electrum on it.
Disconnecting your laptop doesn't help with anything at all. Malwares can still send information when it goes online. Once a computer has access to the internet, its security just decreases as opposed to another computer which has never been connected to the internet.