In defense of debit cards, in the event you do lose it and someone's emptying your account, your bank should still restore your funds after the theft. I say this because it happened to my wife; Chase's fraud prevention kicked in after about $300, all of which was refunded as soon as she figured out what had happened.

It's worth noting that the mere _existence_ of a debit card on a checking account still opens a fraud vector, even if you never use it. If the physical card is stolen, or the bank has a security breach where the number is obtained, those are both enough information to make fraudulent transactions. Of course, using a debit card will greatly enlarge the attack surface, but not using it does not make you immune.