Bitcoin Forum

Hello :)

I would just like to ask which wallet is better to have, an online one or a software?

Thanks.

That depend on you

Ex. I use Online Wallet because I use different PC and my Network is not too fast to download the chain quickly

depends on your needs. what do you plan to do with your coins?

Well, the question is if you want your coins to be stolen or not? If you want them to be stolen, take an online wallet. Lot's of people do that. I don't know why, but I guess they feel generous.

I use the official Bitcoin Qt, i have a desktop computer and i use also to mine, so is powered on 24h a day, i prefer to have mi coins in my computer and to do regular backups of the wallet in my home network nas.

lol +1
Online wallets come with risk. Even if you use strong passwords, you may not be able to trust the website holding your coins. One strength of bitcoin is that you can do it yourself and not have to trust anyone.

I like the flexibility of an online wallet (allows me to move from computer to computer) but security of an offline wallet. I am new to all of this but that's my impression. I wonder if I can have multiple wallets and transfer from online to offline, hmmm.

You don't want an online wallet; that's just asking for trouble. About the closest you may want to come to that is a wallet from blockchain.info; you keep control of your keys, but at any point a hacker (or the website owner, as StrongCoin demonstrated) may interfere with your transactions or worse. Even with a blockchain.info wallet, I still wouldn't keep in it any more coins than you can afford to lose.

If the resource requirements (disk space, bandwidth, and download time) of the Bitcoin-Qt client are too steep for you, at least consider an alternative like Electrum; even an Android wallet like BitcoinSpinner is far superior to online wallets.

Of course, once you have more than a few dollars worth of bitcoins, you'll want to keep the bulk of your coins in cold storage anyway; either stored on an electronic device that has no internet/remote access, or ideally in a paper wallet (or something similar.)

When used correctly, the blockchain.info wallet can be safer to use than the typical use of Bitcoin-Qt, Electrum, or Multi-Bit. It can also be far more convenient.

With Bitcoin-Qt, Electrum, and MultiBit you have the tools necessary to be a bit safer, but most people don't put forth the effort to take advantage of that opportunity.  Blindly using any wallet (online or offline) without understanding what you are doing and how to properly secure it will generally result in increasing the likelihood of losing bitcoins.

Serious question: How is the blockchain.info wallet secured against piuk going rogue and absconding with everyone's coins?

Serious answer: The same way that Bitcoin-Qt (and other wallets) are secured against the developers going rogue and absconding with everyone's coins.

The javascript code is available for review.  Anyone can read it.  There are plugins for some browsers that verify that the code hasn't changed and will warn you if it does, so Piuk and/or a hacker can't change it on you unexpectedly.  The private keys are encrypted in your browser on your computer and then sent to the blockchain.info database in encrypted form only, so they are useless to Piuk without the password to decrypt them.  Your password is not sent to blockchain.info, but rather is kept locally in your browser session and used to decrypt the encrypted private keys there when the blockchain.info database sends them to your browser.

Since Piuk doesn't have access to your password, and only has access to encrypted private keys, he cannot abscond with your bitcoins unless he changes the javascript code that runs in your browser to either send the decrypted private keys or your password to him.  Installing the proper browser plugin will keep him (or anyone else) from doing that without your knowledge.

A developer could change any of the other wallets (Bitcon-Qt, Electrum, MultiBit) to secretly send your private keys to themselves.  The assumption is that because the code is available to review, it would be noticed before they can get away with it.  The same is true of the blockchain.info wallet.

Thanks.  :)

Hi, Im new here and have an online wallet at coinbase.com... is safety and a good site? If not, what could I do, I dont have a lot BC but still want to start with the right foot.

Personally I use MultiBit on my PC, does everything I need and is easy to use. :)

depends what u use for....... offline here

thank's for this - https://blockchain.info/wallet/
I now know something new :)

Electrum is a good choice. Being a lite client, resource usage is very reasonable. Online wallets can be risky - even if they do not store your key online, changes to the website could grab your key. On the other hand, a desktop client will not do that unless it was already in the executable when downloaded.

also

I use blockchain. However, if I had several 100 BTC i'd use an offline wallet.

A good rule I think is to only store small amounts online and keep large amounts offline. That way you have the convenience of online but not as much risk.

I compare it to my wallet i have i have in RL and my savings which i keep in the bank.

I use a local wallet, and backup my wallet.dat every day.

Any good wallets for iPhone?

well, I use the blockchain.info app... :)

How's it?

I needed a wallet, so have gone with Blockchain on the back of advice from a few trusted friends. 

Is there any proof that the likes of Bitcoin-QT, Multibit, Armory & Electrum are safer than Blockchain? 

Have any of these been hacked or taken advantage of to a point that screams to new users "stay away!"

Thanks  :)

Not really. Offline wallets mentioned on the official bitcoin page are pretty trustworthy.

There's the incident with StrongCoin.

They had a similar setup to Blockchain. They somehow got wind that, allegedly, the thief from the OzCoin hack was storing funds using their setup, and was about to send the funds elsewhere. Rather than alert authorities, or simply pointing out the alleged thief to the community, they changed their website code so that the next time the thief logged in, without even knowing it, the thief sent money to the "rightful owner" whenever he made a transaction. The thief realized what was going on after a few transactions, but by then quite a sum had been "recovered."

Now, was that a successful recovery of stolen goods, as opposed to the willful robbing of a wrongfully-accused customer? We on the outside may never know, but let's assume it was. Doesn't it bother you that that was carried out so easily? What if some hacker had gotten access to the website and done that to EVERYONE who used it? What if the owner of StrongCoin just decided to go rogue and swipe funds that way (and, say, just blame it on some anonymous hacker?) I'm pretty sure StrongCoin's business took a hit after the revelation of what they did.

With Blockchain, you can get a browser plugin that verifies the website code. Ok. But who writes the plugin? Does it auto-update? Does it work in a browser's privacy mode if that mode turns off plugins? Is there a way to write the website code such that it fools the plugin and still tampers with your transactions? These are all questions that, just because they're viable questions for those without in-depth knowledge of how it all works, effectively downgrade even Blockchain's security notably compared to a one-time download of a slightly-older, tested version of an app.

great!

I use Electrum, its easy to use and lightweight, and it doesn't need to download the whole blockchain.

If we compare lack of knowledge on proper security precautions on each wallet, then we are stuck having to make judgement calls on how likely we think a given individual is to make a particular security error or or likely they are to lack knowledge in a particular matter.  The one-time downloads of an app have security concerns as well if the individual isn't verifying checksums, and/or is downloading a pre-compiled executable.  In addition lack of knowledge about how the app operates at a technical level can lead to the user making errant assumptions that can lead to loss of bitcoins as well (assuming that they only need to back up once is just one example of a common mistake, there are others).

Any conversation about security and safety is dependent on may questions about the users knowledge, and willingness to learn, as well as their ability to put into place practices that they reliably execute.

- Is the wallet owner experience with computer security and maintaining a healthy and safe operating environment? Then bitcoin-qt might be for them. But there are those who will claim that bitcoin-qt should never be used on an online PC for large wallets...
- Is the wallet owner not the above? Eg your stereotypical clueless computer user who's most used program is Outlook Express? Well then a blockchain.info wallet might be a good idea, although there certainly still vulnerabilities in this case, it might be safer than a software client.

While all that's true, I think it's pretty much universally agreed that large wallets should only be stored offline (on paper, engraved metal tags, burned to CD, etc.)

Although if you're going to do something clever like engrave your private key on the inside of a silver ring you wear... I wouldn't advertise that fact.  ::)

Ok, so from what I understand I will be going with offline - software wallet. On the official website of the Bitcoin I can see 4 of the software wallets:
- Bitcoin - Qt
- Multibit
- Armory
- Electrum

Can I ask if any of the above is way better then the others? Or is there something special about each?

Armory just expands Bitcoin-qt's abilities. It works on top of it.

Ok, thanks for explaining. So what about other 2? Is there any that stands out or something?

Thanks.