Before the 3.3.3 update was released, Electrum had never notified users of available updates. You are the one at fault.
I almost fell for this and wasn't aware of how you got notified of Electrum updates. I got a pop-up to upgrade and proceeded to do so, but my virus protection software said the update had malware on it. Crazy. That was like 2 months ago or so. I assume that's the issue OP had.
Aside from that, Electrum is a great wallet--you just have to be careful about hacking attempts, I guess. I wouldn't go so far as to blame OP for falling for the trick, as he hadn't used the wallet in some time and had no reason to think he'd get scammed that way.
you should not even care where you download the binaries from because even if you download them from the official website it still is not safe until you cryptographically verify its digital signature.
And if you ever wonder why the average person won't adopt bitcoin, see the above quote. Lol.