E-Wallets: What are they good for? What's their purpose?

[Tacticat]

I would normally have posted this on the general bitcoin talk forum, but since I'm still a newbie I'm going to ask this question here first and if it gets enough interest I might post it later on another subforum in order to generate some interesting debate.

What are E-Wallets good for? (This is meant as a post to make us thing and debate the possible situations).

Now, in today's Internet we got used to the fact that Online applications are useful because they let us access our data from wherever we are. We just need a computer with an Internet access and we can sign in to our Facebook account, twitter or email with some reasonable risk that we are willing to accept.

But when it comes to our money, to our Bitcoins, the risk threshold skyrockets and the purpose of an E-Wallet drops.

I'm probably NEVER going to login to any E-wallet from a Public Computer because It's impossible for me to trust it. Also, I'm probably never going to use it at work because most often we can't control computers at work, because they're shared, because they're not always up to date in security standards. The same goes for many of my friends' computers: Since it's not my computer I don't know if their security is up to date, if they have caught any viruses or keyloggers accidentally.

In the end, the only place I'm ever going to login to my E-wallet from, are my own computers. The computers I can trust, I know and I feel confident enough to manage my money from. If that's the case... why not directly use a stand-alone client? It's easy to install and I don't have to worry about Javascript poisoning or any similar browser threats that appear from time to time.

I'm not saying that E-wallets aren't useful, just that their usefulness in a secure environment is very limited compared to other online services. We got used to the fact that "Online service" means "100% accessiblity" and "comfortableness", but when it comes to my money I'm quite confident that these two attributes are not my priority and I'm not going to trade them in for the security of my deposits.

What do you think?

[knight22]

E-wallet are usefull because you can have access to your money from anywhere with any computer/device connected to internet but yes it is not the more secure way to use bitcoin so you should not but a lot of money on these services.

[bitblend-SUCKS]

A better idea: use an instawallet and have the URL synced to wherever you wish with a free service like xmarks.

[davout]

A better idea: use an instawallet and have the URL synced to wherever you wish with a free service like xmarks.

Any Apple fanboy would also tell you that your bookmarks are synced with iCloud

[mjc]

With Blockchain eWallet, you can use the Android or iPhone app to send and receive BTC from your phone.

https://blockchain.info/wallet

[Gatorhex]

The problem with the bitcoin client is you have to lug around nealy 5gb of blockchain and keep it up to date constantly.

With an e-wallet/light-wallet someone else is doing the this for you.

[Jutarul]

What are E-Wallets good for? (This is meant as a post to make us thing and debate the possible situations).
What do you think?

I'll make you answer your own question:
What is e-banking good for?

On the issue of e-wallet vs. client software. A lot of people don't know how to make proper backups.
If the risk of website security < risk of user error, then you should use an e-wallet. simple as that.