electrum vs bitcoin-qt

[gonzos]

Hello everyone

I'm still looking to settle with a bitcoins client. I downloaded the Bitcoin-QT client and it took forever to load the blocks, whereas Electrum does not need to download the blocks.
Now I'm puzzled what to use. I can understand, that using the bitcoin-qt client to be more reliable and secure because you download the blocks yourself in opposition to Electrum, where you just depend on a global server downloading the blocks for you and providing them on the client.

Is it a bad thing to use Electrum?

Greetings Gonzos

[favdesu]

No it's not bad or insecure to use electrum / multibit.

If you want to know how they work, I suggest you to check the alt client sub-forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=37.0

[karmazynt]

All of them are pretty the same secure / insecure. Maybe you would use some online wallet like https://blockchain.info/ if you don't want to download full chain?

[shakezola]

What if you connect Electrum to a "fake" server by accident?

Can it alter transactions or do other kinds of harm to your wallet?

[gonzos]

I don't think that would be possible.
you are connecting to publicly hosted servers anyways.
if someone had ill thoughts, they would have used them already.

[cp1]

The only thing a malicious server could do would be to lie to you about how many bitcoins you have.  It can't steal them or anything.  It's a good way to go if you don't want the blockchain hassle.

[dzzima]

at the end of the day, they are all pretty much the same.  i use bitcoin-qt and happy with it. it takes long time to download the chains, but it happens only once, next time it will take it a couple of seconds or miutes to sync with the network, depending how often you launch it.

[reannypleas]

I using Electrum client and no problems encountered. No need to wait for syncing is Electrum advantage

[gonzos]

good. then i'll have no reason to switch.
Thanks for all your replies.

[Akka]

Well, the Network need people running full Nodes (Bitcoin-QT). Without them there is no Bitcoin.

For example, all mobile Wallets rely fully on full Nodes to work.

So, if you have the resources available and want to support the Network I encourage you to use QT.

From a User perspective there speaks nothing against electrum and for systems with low resources (RAM, HD-Space, Bandwith) it is much better.

[Tammy Chan]

Well, the Network need people running full Nodes (Bitcoin-QT). Without them there is no Bitcoin.

For example, all mobile Wallets rely fully on full Nodes to work.

So, if you have the resources available and want to support the Network I encourage you to use QT.

From a User perspective there speaks nothing against electrum and for systems with low resources (RAM, HD-Space, Bandwith) it is much better.

Using Electrum, You cannot make a transaction to multiple addresses.

Apart from that, Electrum is very good and user-friendly.

[Endgame]

Both bitcoin-qt and electrum are safe and secure clients. It's really just a matter of personal preference.