Bitcoin Forum

Hello I am wondering what is best wallet for windows vista.Do you have to download full block chain also?

Thanks

Windows Vista?! Well there's something you don't see every day. That was out WAY before bitcoin time.

I would suggest bitcoin core or electrum, depending on a few different things. Mainly, your room on your hard drive, speed and of course if these are even available for Vista. I'd have to assume they are but I mean, come on, it's time to treat yourself to an upgrade. My GOD how I hated Vista.

Might want to upgrade your OS before April 2017 (when windows will drop support for Vista).
If you don't want to download the blockchain, Electrum is what I usually recommend. Although some people prefer MultiBit.

Electrum or MultiBit.

Stop using Vista, it's a bad one even by Windows standards. Switch to Windows 7 at least, or do the smart thing and start using Linux (one of Debian distros like kubuntu or xubuntu).

Use mycelium I can swear I saw an announcement last week that they were releasing on windows I think or something about a crowdfunding something of the sort just can't recall what it was exactly. :-\

I wouldn't recommend the OP download Bitcoin Core. Even if they have the HDD space, why waste 30 to 40GB of drive space when you don't need to? Additionally, why put that unnecessary extra load on the network to download the blockchain?

I agree with the Electrum recommendation though. It's an easy-to-use lightweight wallet (less than 75MB last I checked) with all the features of Bitcoin Core, plus it's being actively developed. Additionally, it also has hardware wallet support if you ever decide to purchase a hardware wallet.

Just enable pruning and that is no longer a concern.

Extra load on the network??? What the hell is that supposed to mean? A full node does a lot to help the network, even if it is pruned. It doesn't hurt; it helps. We need more full nodes, especially ones that accept incoming connections.

Good point about pruning, I forgot that it was recently implemented. However, I'm fairly sure that even with Bitcoin Core running a pruned blockchain, you'd be using more disk space than just running Electrum (plus you'd have to sync up the blockchain everytime you'd want to send a transaction if the computer isn't being used as a full node).

As for the extra load on the network, I meant that 30-40GB of bandwidth would be required to download the entire blockchain. I'm sure some full nodes are hosted on VPS' with limited bandwidth. Why use up bandwidth on these VPS full nodes if it isn't needed by using a wallet such as Electrum?

Regarding the full node argument, I agree that more full nodes on the network is always a good thing, but the OP hasn't specified what sort of uptime their computer has. I wouldn't assume that their computer on enough to be a full node (nodes need to be on for at least 6 hours or so to be considered a full node IIRC). Additionally, we don't know if the OP has any sort of bandwidth limitations. If they do, running a full node probably isn't the best idea.

That can be a nuisance, but it is the price of privacy and security.

Those VPS nodes probably aren't accepting incoming connections. The DNS seeder will usually only hand out node's that have had a high uptime and thus most likely have a high bandwidth.

Also, Electrum connects to specific Electrum servers, not random full nodes. Those servers are run by volunteers.

There is no time requirement to be a full node. A full node is any node that fully validates and verifies every single block and transaction it receives. Thus any time that Bitcoin Core is run, the computer is a full node.

I have been using web wallet coinbase for long time, till i came to know about electrum, i am using electrum for more than 2 yrs and i am happy with its functions and its security is also good, any where you can access this desktop wallet just you have to remember the seed key.

Thank you all for your input so far and continue to use the thread for your opinions/recommendations etc on the subject.Your comments have been very helpful and much appreciated.I may use web wallet for now due to slow connection and not using my computer a lot of course would not be adding much value to network as node etc but maybe when I get broadband connection and better computer and some more experience with bitcoin will do some mining and look into the node idea etc.

there are two types of wallets some are light wallet and some are heavy wallet.heavy are beeter than light but heavy wallet (like bitcoin core) need to be download full network(80gb) before you can use it and light wallet does not need any downloading just install the wallet and you are ready to go.some of light wallet are electrum and greenwallet

if you have a slow connection you can still use SPV wallets like Electrum or Multibit HD. these don't download a lot. they only file they (i know about Electrum) download is the blockchain headers which is a one time thing and is only 30+ MB and syncing doesn't take much time from that time onward.

this is more recommended than using a web wallet if you want to hold more than 1BTC

If you're not going to hold much bitcoin, just use a web wallet. I guess it's the best option for you. But if you are holding more than that, you could invest in a hardware wallet. Even a ledger wallet if your chrome supports extensions.

For windows, you want to use either core if you want to have the full blockchain and the security of being your own "bank" and being able to handle all the transactions yourself... however if the prospect of downloading the entire blockchain seems less than appealing and you're after a SPV wallet, go with Electrum. It is tried and tested and is very good at what it does.

If you are running Windows its best to upgrade for free to Windows 10, I know that 29 July has passed but you can just change the date of your computer and Microsoft has left this glitch intentionally for anyone to take profit of such opportunity. After doing this the best wallet is Bitcoin Core which is about 60 GB after you download it in full but is perfect as its very difficult to be hacked. If you are running Linux whatever desktop wallet you choose is OK because Linux is secure by nature and itself so no big difference for example here between core, electrum or multibit.

Web wallet is not the safest option as the website might get hacked. The safest web wallets are coinbase.com and blockchain.info, they are both free.
You are safer using a free desktop wallet like electrum (less than 40MB) or a paid hardware wallet like Trezor.

It depends on the number of coins you are holding. If its a low amount you can keep it even in blockchain.info or any other web wallet. If its low to medium amount you can keep it in Core, Multibit, Electrum. For peace of mind do like I just did 2 days ago and bought the Ledger HW.1 wallet, a malware proof hardware wallet for a really cheap price of only 15 Euro or 0.027 BTC. You can sleep well at night knowing that even if your computer security is compromised your bitcoins are safe with this wallet as every transaction is done through the secure malware proof chip of this wallet. I can't wait to have it, should be here after a few days.

I'm using electrum on windows, and Copay on android. So far they're the best for me.

I am using electrum wallet for long time in my windows and i find it easy to use except some ocassional misbehave and you actually don't have to download whole blockchain to use electrum. For android i love blockchain wallet.

In windows if you want to be sure there's only one option which is unbreakable and that is a hardware wallet.

Basically all other wallets you install, web ones or desktop ones cannot safeguard your coins once your PC is infected by a keylogger. The moment you type in the password the passphrase to Bitcoin core for example the hacker that owns the keylogger immediately can get your coins. He can then start bitcoin core remotely and use it as he wish.

Windows security is really f*cked up to a point it's not recommended to keep your bitcoin wallets there. You can of course use a hardware wallet to be 100% sure no one will ever stole your coins.