This is post from reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/148abf/my_first_experience_with_bitcoin_was_not_positive/I'm bringing this here to emphasize how big problems new users are having with default client.
After seeing an interesting comment on /r/funny in which bitcoin currency is used to make tips across reddit I started to investigate and learn about the Bitcoin. I had heard about it before but I didn't know how it worked or what I had to do in order to use it.
A dozen Bitcoin Wiki entries later I download bitcoin-qt and create my first wallet. The system seemed very easy and straightforward and I had already started to apply for "free starter bitcoins" when I met "synchronization".
Now synchronization is not necessarily a deal breaker but it was annoying as hell. I'm using an old computer and it seemed as if it would take at least a day if not more to complete the whole process... and during that time my computer was getting slow as hell.
Now I'm quite a tech savy person and I know why in this P2P based system this is important, but for anyone else this would be unacceptable. Imagine elder people or not so tech savy persons trying out the system for the first time and noticing that they can't use it without occupying 2+ GiB of their HardDrive and having to wait a lot.
I did not complete the sync and tried to use the multibit instead. But since I had already applied to the Free starter bitcoins on some websites I wanted to keep my old wallet. I try to look for an import/export button but it seems that Bitcoin-qt doesn't support exportation and I needed to use a third party application called pywallet (command line!) to export my wallet and convert it into another plaintext format since the format used by bitcoin-qt was not supported by multibit.
And one would assume that the first thing you do when creating such a currency is to define a standard for the wallet and the applications. Again, I know how to use the command line but anyone who doesn't and who just wants to try out the system for the first time would be inmediately turned off by this limitation.
These are all issues that need to be fixed and addressed. Also, at the current situation it is much more comfortable and easier to set up an e-wallet than using standalone software on my computer. And if you ask me, it beats the purpose of creating a decentralized currency when in the end the most popular e-wallet services are going to hold most bitcoins and suppose a great security risk.
So I ask you: do you know any solutions to the above mentioned problems? Is there any way to reduce the impact by those hindrances?
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