Bitcoin Forum

A new reworked "Choose your wallet" page has been submitted for review on bitcoin.org .

Live preview: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet (Edit, now merged)

Descriptions for the changes can be found below. Hope you all like the result, more testing, opinions and feedback is always welcome!

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This new layout is addressing many issues and feedback, with a focus on the following points:

- Providing increased transparency about security and the zero trust model.
(making it a better education material and providing incentives to developers to improve their wallets over time.)

- Easing the selection process for the visitor.
(by simplifying the page and allowing users to filter wallets by platform, with access to clear information and screenshots.)

- Allowing the page to scale with the increasing diversity of wallets.
(by not isolating wallets into single categories anymore and introducting anticipated hardware wallets.)

- Encourage diversity and decentralization.
(by not recommending a single wallet anymore, and by rotating wallets daily by « zero trust levels » - full nodes followed by SPV wallets followed by hybrid & multisig wallets followed by web wallets.)

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The following points are reviewed for all wallets:

- Private keys
What control the user has over his bitcoins?

- Block chain
How secure and « zero trust » is payment processing?

- Transparency
How transparent and « zero trust » is the source code?

- Environment
How secure is the environment of the wallet?

- Privacy
Does the wallet implement change addresses properly? (for now)

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Web wallets controling users private keys were previously hidden behind a strong warning.

The new page is displaying the same warnings and a few others from the wallet bubble. Web wallets are sandboxed out of all categories unless they provide control over private keys to the user and a native app that signs transactions locally. Future certification standards could possibly allow web wallets to provide enough transparency to be listed outside of the sandbox in the future.

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Bitcoin Core previously had a complete paragraph inviting users to adopt full nodes.

The new page instead always displays Bitcoin Core as the first wallet and the reasons why users should choose Bitcoin Core are better outlined by its good zero trust score. Bitcoin Core is also contextually linked from other wallets' disclaimers.

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This layout has been tested on recent and older versions of CH, FF, OP, IE, SA, Android & iPhone. A few small bugs exist for older browsers, IE6-7 isn't supported for now.

I like the visual JavaScript effect of the different logos switching on and off when mousing over the desired platform.

Looks good, I like the detailed comparisons between the wallets. :)

maybe i'm old but i feel all this rollover stuff is a bit overdone

It looks nice and I see the wallet list is growing
Either that or I haven't been on the page in a while green address looks cool.

Nice but the lack of hardware wallets is really depressing.

It is much much better than before!!!

Good job guys! Now this looks much more pro and the choice is wider with more informations about!

I love it!

Thanks for the feedback, glad to know most of you are liking the result!

GreenAddress / BitGo have been added recently, but not as part as this pull request.

AFAIK they are coming soon, I just wanted to reserve them some room for the near future.

Where is Dark Wallet?

Its still in Alpha isnt it? IIRC the devs discourage its use for non testcoins. Would make no sense to add it now.

OH.. ok! that makes sense! i thought they were out of alpha release but i think you're right.

I just tested GreenAddress for Iphone. Looks promising for everyday payments because of the "instant confirmation" option where the receiver trusts green address for the confirmation. Still some bugs, not possible to add watch only addresses, not possible to add private keys without sweeping, If you want to add an address to your address book you have to type it manually. Iphone lacks a decent bitcoin wallet.

Looks good, but its slightly more confusing than the original page. Im not saying that its hard to understand, its just lest user friendly than having 3 LARGE buttons (original page).

Hehe :) But now you have more wallets to choose :)
Old one was pretty retarded now it is really cool!

I understand what are you talking about as when I saw that I had similar feeling that it is less user friendly - but we know this site from some time and we get used to the old panel. :)

So new bitcoiners will learn how to use this "new" one :) and they will find it very easy in usage I think.

Its just that its not user friendly!

I would much rather have a shitty design and have it be easy to use, than a good design but harder to use.

FWIW, the old page was considered hard to use / confusing for many reasons according to the comments I have reviewed, naming some:

- Wallets were either duplicated all over the place, or some web wallets were isolated to a single category even though they provide an app.
- People were missing the separation between wallets categories and mixing them all together.
- Some wallets did have their names hidden with a mandatory disclaimer, which many people found confusing.
- Previous layout was filled with texts and I've seen people complaining the page wasn't "palatable" for newcomers as a result.
- The previous layout was very innefficient at allowing people to find an app for their choosen OS (would become a problem in the future).
- Etc..

..So if there's specific issues like these with the new layout, I'm certainly interested to hear them and think of future changes. This page is clearly not one I'd consider easy to improve until it pleases everyone.

Regarding BlockChain.info u have stated this...


But, AFAIK, the complete source code is not open like Bitcoin-QT. Only the client side JS is open. Please check the bottom of https://blockchain.info/wallet/security


We dont know what is happening at the server side !!!

IMO, I prefer the design there is right now.

To my understanding, transactions are signed locally by the app, so blockchain.info servers can only be used to get data from the block chain. The "decentralization" score takes care of this part: "This wallet relies on a centralized service by default. This means a third party must be trusted to not hide or simulate payments."

This being said, if someone can prove me wrong and show that any of these centralized servers can do more than just providing block chain data when the open-source client is loaded, I would certainly agree to use the "closed-source" dialog instead.

A person has to be really dumb not to understand this at first sight.
Looks way better than the original if you ask me.

I have problem with the line The developers of this wallet publish the source code. I think, it should be changed to The developers of this wallet publish the client side source code, unless blockchain.info publishes the server side.

Moreover, as I can see u r Bitcoin.org maintainer, I would like to know, if the answers under the following question are paid ?

https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#how-does-one-acquire-bitcoins

I've added a mention of the client in the text, good point, thanks!


Do you mean if one of the website is paying for being linked here?

If I understand your question correctly, then the answer is no. Actually you can assume no link on bitcoin.org is (or has been) generating any kind of income so far to my knowledge (except the Foundation sponsorship banner of course, but it's clearly stated).

If you think any link is worth being replaced by another or anything, feel free to open a pull request (preferably only if you believe there's a good reason in doing so, because updating all translations is time consuming).