Starting from a few days ago, MultiBit is the default recommended desktop client on the bitcoin.org choose your wallet page. MultiBit is a what we call an "SPV wallet" so is capable of processing thousands of blocks per second, and its checkpoints are refreshed frequently enough that for brand new users, they will usually be synced with the chain in 5 seconds or less. I'll explain a bit more about how this works in a moment, as we have many newbies join us in recent months who may not be familiar with the details.