Bitcoin Forum

I currently use blockchain.info, but was wondering if Strongcoin is any better? Or maybe something else?

Im also after a LTC ewallet as well. Any good ones out there?

How secure if your opinion are the ewallets? Do you use them? I'm sure keeping your own wallet.dat file is the safest bet, but I can't help but fear my computer crashing at one point, I failed to backup, etc. While I am rather security driven, I can't help but feel there MIGHT come a time when an accident happens where I forget to backup, or maybe one day get hacked. This is why ewallets seem rather appealing to me for ease of mind. It may seem a little ass backwards because how would trusting your funds in a hybrid state offer ease of mine.. lol But for the simple fact of user error is what I fear. Putting the burden in someone elses hand like blockchain that holds a more experience than a newbie like myself seems more fitting currently.

Thoughts on what ewallet to use over another? For BTC and LTC.

Thanks in advance! :)

-Ryan

For a nice tradeoff between ease of use(eWallets) and security (native clients) I'd suggest you look into Electrum!

The wallet file with your keys is still stored on your own computer, so it's not an ewallet, but  you don't need to back it up as it can be recreated from a 'seed' at any time. Look into deterministic wallets for more technical info on how that works.

Disclosure: I'm involved with the Windows builds of Electrum.

The level of security necessary should be proportionate to your risk.

A hybrid wallet like Blockchain.info/wallet might be fine for an amount that you might be willing to carry in your back pocket or so, but the use of Blockchain.info/wallet still depends on you maintaining a secure system.  So for that reason, you would want to limit the amount of funds keps with an EWallet with, by definition, requires you to access it over the network.

Another factor to consider is fees.   Blockchain.info charges no fee to use the wallet and to withdraw.

Additionally, if you wish to access the wallet from a mobile, not all EWallets have multiple access methods.  Here's a comparison chart:

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mobile_Payment_Apps

blockchain.info is the best eWallet hands down, no other comes close.

+1

Used BC.info's wallet for about 6-7 months now, with around 27 transactions no issues at all.

Alright thanks for the posts everyone!

One last question. Those of you that do use blockchain. Would you be comfortable with having say $10,000 worth of coins in your account, and be completely free of worry? In other words, do you trust the site to hold large amounts of money, and just letting it sit there as a savings if you will? :)

Thanks again!

-Ryan

I've never had this much in my BC wallet, but if I did I would feel secure with it. Just make sure you setup a secure e-mail account with your wallet so in case of anything you can recover it. I do also believe that you have to option to export your wallet.dat from BC.

Absolutely! Currently I have next to nothing in BTC (literally lol), so its not a real big issue currently. Right now I'm just feeling everything out, and getting a good idea what the community deems safe and trustworthy. I've been living and breathing bitcoin these last few weeks in terms of intaking as much information as I can :) Still have a lot to learn! But again thank you all for your posts! They have been very helpful!

-Ryan

If you utilize the two factor authentication with blockchain.info and take pre-cautions, like install a browser specificly for blockchain.info, and don't use it to visit any other site, it's almost impossible to lose your coins, unless you done something incredibly stupid. Blockchain.info don't actually hold your coins, and can't actually access your coins without your password. The only other possibility, is if blockchain.info's server got hacked and source code got changed, it's pretty rare these days for a competent website to lose control of their source code, I think I've only heard of this happening in the case of the employee of the hosting provider has done the hacking. If blockchain.info's source code got changed, then all users who login during the period can potentially lose their coins, until piuk the operator discover the hack. Again this is an extremely rare case, and would not affect you if you did not login during the time of the hack.

Fantastic info! I appreciate you taking the time to write that. Great to know! :D

-Ryan

With client-side encryption your coins are lost if you lose your password.

I'd say the safest is to use paytunia.com with two factor authentification so you don't have to worry about losing your password.

disclosure: i am a co-founder of paymium

I use a combination of paper wallets from bitaddress.org and blockchain.info for my savings (will move to Armory in a short while). Basically, blockchain.info has my savings addresses as watch only, and if I need to pull money out, I add the private key from the paper printout, create a transaction, and delete the private key again. I'm still vulnerable during that period, but luckily I don't need to withdraw much. And having it on watch-only makes it easy to add money to my savings accounts.

Yep, this. Also, a great move would be to limit your IP access on blockchain.info. I do.

My paper wallets are also brainwallets. I copy/paste a large portion of text, add some non-dictionary stuff somewhere, and put it through bitaddress.org. Then I write part of my private key down and put it in a drawer, and I email myself the other part. Usually a chunk in the middle. Then I leave clues on the paper, email, and my wallet labels about what I used to generate the address.

No, I would not!  If for no other reason then because every time their site is down for a few hours - or worse misbehave because the backend is down, I get worried that they have been hacked.  They haven't, of course, and even if they had it would be *very* difficult to run with my coins because of the double encryption - but perhaps they could manage somehow to poison the javascript and get the password.  Anyway, I happily use blockchain.info for everyday bitcoining, but would suffer a nervous breakdown every time the site was down if I had that kind of money in it :)   For that, I recommend an offline wallet, for example Armory.

The hacker can't access your coins, unless they obtain your password. Sure it's possible to completely hack blockchain.info and change the source code to steal passwords, but it's unlikely to happen. I believe piuk has some type of monitoring that detects malicious source code checksum change and he would be alerted almost immediately.