disclaimer : I m not a mtgox employee, but I m selling a service to mtgox ( IRC support and information watch ) ; the following is a personal opinion not related to the fact mtgox is also a customer of mine.
So is it okay to use mt gox? I've heard so many bad things about it and I'm consdering using tradehill instead.
Yes many people are saying bad things of mtgox, many also have a referral link for other exchanges in their signature . . .
Mtgox is a real company, based in japan, it works pretty well even if nothing is perfect.
Most of the people complaining about mtgox are complaining because of AML ( anti money laundering ) limits.
Yes mtgox, being a real company, is respecting AML laws, and some dont like it.
Mtgox need to have bank accounts to provide a useful service, and banks ask them to respect some rules ( typicaly AML systems ) to keep the accounts opened.
The important point for me is that mtgox is a real company, with a public whois, they wont disappear with your money like it happened with mybitcoin or moonco.in and others.
The worst thing that can happen with mtgox is having delays on withdrawals, the volume being very big, you can sometimes experience delays on SEPA/paxum/dwolla/LR withdrawals; those are just delays, your money wont be lost, mtgox wont disappear, thats the important point for me.
Since Magicaltux bought mtgox from Jed ( historical mtgox owner ) they have invested much time and work on making it more secure, fixing problems, securing offline storage, adding yubikey ( One time Password system ) . . .
I sell a service to mtgox, but I m also a bitcoin trader, and I consider mtgox as being the most secure and trusted exchange you can find.
If you are still afraid by all the people FUDing about mtgox, I also use ( and trust ) bitparking (
https://exchange.bitparking.com ) and exchb (
https://www.exchangebitcoins.com ) exchanges.
