...I am just a humble Windows Internet explorer user....but not the latest one which locks my PC....
If you click Internet Explorer's 'help' button (up near the top somewhere) and then click 'About' Internet Explorer it will tell you what version you're using. It will be some funny, long, vaguely number-like thing with possibly more than one decimal point, but the first decimal point will be after the first digit. All you need to know is that first digit. I guess it will probably be '6'.
If it's less than 8 you really need to upgrade, because older versions are at much more risk, if that's possible, than versions 8 and 9 of allowing the Bad Guys into your computer.
You don't even need to click on a bad link, or do something that a more computer-literate user might call silly. If you (for example) visited the Stock Exchange Website a few months ago your computer would probably have been taken over by criminals. At the moment there are something like a quarter of a million Websites known to be under criminal control. All you have to do is visit one using a vulnerable computer, and then you might have to spend a couple of days getting over it, even if you know what you're doing.
If you can't get a recent version of Internet Explorer working, try Firefox. It's free, it works, and it's a lot safer than Internet Explorer. There are several others you could try but I don't want to overload you with information.