POLL: Which bitcoin client do you use?

[gweedo]

If you are running a Bitcoin business selling goods/services and need to receive Bitcoins, a full client is your only logical choice.
A full client is the only way to verify transactions, check for double spends without having to trust anyone else.

You could use cold storage and blockchain.info inside of a full client, I have implement that before.

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[Nagato]

Im assuming you mean have a wallet in cold storage and use blockchain.info to watch your address and notify you of any incoming transactions?

That does not give you trustless verification.
You would have to trust blockchain.info to be telling you your balance and incoming transactions.

Lets assume the owner of blockchain.info or a hacker who compromises blockchain.info servers wants to get your goods without paying for it.
He can alter the blockchain DB and post fake incoming transactions to your address which you will trust and ship out your goods.
Without a full client running, you have to trust someone.

For a small retail shop/cafe selling low cost items, it might be OK to use blockchain.info or any light client as your risk is minimal.

[BitStick]

yay i'm on the winning team with bitcoin QT  

I'm a total noob to bitcoins, is there any advantage to download another client or sign-up for an online wallet?
Eventually I want to have an interactive website so the web page can send and receive payments, etc

[Nagato]

yay i'm on the winning team with bitcoin QT  

I'm a total noob to bitcoins, is there any advantage to download another client or sign-up for an online wallet?
Eventually I want to have an interactive website so the web page can send and receive payments, etc

The advantage is mobility, lower cpu/memory usage.
Like i said, for an average user only looking to store/spend, using any of the light desktop clients(opensource and downloaded from trusted website) is fine.
For web wallets, there are 2 kinds

1) Hosted wallets
You have to trust the wallet provider to not run off with your coins or get compromised.(I would not use this for anything more than a few BTC)

2) Hybrid wallets (Blockchain.info)
Here the wallet and private keys are encrypted by a password only you know, such that even the server administrator cannot get to your keys.
Theoretically this is as safe as the desktop light clients.
Yet, you have to continually trust the service that it's source is not changed to send back your password to the server or that the server is compromised to send your password to a 3rd party.

Unless you read the entire javascript source everytime you login, you can never be 100% sure.


For all options, a compromised PC means you will lose your coins as soon as your wallet is decrypted.

[gweedo]

Im assuming you mean have a wallet in cold storage and use blockchain.info to watch your address and notify you of any incoming transactions?

That does not give you trustless verification.
You would have to trust blockchain.info to be telling you your balance and incoming transactions.

Lets assume the owner of blockchain.info or a hacker who compromises blockchain.info servers wants to get your goods without paying for it.
He can alter the blockchain DB and post fake incoming transactions to your address which you will trust and ship out your goods.
Without a full client running, you have to trust someone.

You could do it trust-less,it be a pain but could be done

[Nagato]

Could you elaborate?

[Rarrikins]

As a newbie, I'd like to know what the most popular bitcoin client other newbies and experienced users alike are using.
Perhaps I've made a bad choice? - Mine (who will not be mentioned in case it prejudices the poll) is a bit clunky.

I used bitcoind because I'm planning on using the Armory or something like it when it finishes updating the block chain in about three months from now....

[MoonShadow]

If you are running a Bitcoin business selling goods/services and need to receive Bitcoins, a full client is your only logical choice.
A full client is the only way to verify transactions, check for double spends without having to trust anyone else.

That's not completely accurate, there are several levels of trust.  I use Electrum because it combines the small local footprint of a light client, without the need to trust a third party with my private keys.  Electrum basicly uses a specially designed p2p network overlay to offload the blockchain database to a remote server (stratum server) but it keeps the wallet.dat local, and all transactions are created and signed locally.  While it's true that certain blockchain based deceptions can theoretically be performed against a particular Electrum client, this is far from an easy fraud method, and there is no case of this happening in the wild that we know of.

[flatfly]

If you are running a Bitcoin business selling goods/services and need to receive Bitcoins, a full client is your only logical choice.
A full client is the only way to verify transactions, check for double spends without having to trust anyone else.

That's not completely accurate, there are several levels of trust.  I use Electrum because it combines the small local footprint of a light client, without the need to trust a third party with my private keys.  Electrum basicly uses a specially designed p2p network overlay to offload the blockchain database to a remote server (stratum server) but it keeps the wallet.dat local, and all transactions are created and signed locally.  While it's true that certain blockchain based deceptions can theoretically be performed against a particular Electrum client, this is far from an easy fraud method, and there is no case of this happening in the wild that we know of.

Actually it is completely accurate.  Nagato specifically states that the only way to verify transactions and check for double spends with a client such as Electrum is to trust someone else.  You then indirectly point out that Electrum requires you to trust stratum server to verify transactions and check for double spends.

Wrong! Electrum clients verify transactions locally using SPV, the light-client payment verification method originally suggested by Satoshi. Which means a rogue server just can't show clients any fake transaction. There are other attacks possible in theory, but to my knowledge this is not one of them.

[DannyHamilton]

Wrong! Electrum clients verify transactions locally using SPV, the light-client payment verification method originally suggested by Satoshi. Which means a rogue server just can't show clients any fake transaction. There are other attacks possible in theory, but to my knowledge this is not one of them.

Interesting.  I'll look into that.  In the meantime, I'll delete my post as it may be incorrect due to a misunderstanding on my part about how Electrum works.

[haitispaceagency]

bitspinner on my phone