My personal opinion is that the ideal first client has three features:

(1) Starts up and is usable within a couple minutes (even 10 min the first time would be okay, to sync block headers)
(2) Supports Windows, Linux and OSX
(3) Uses deterministic wallets that can produce a permanent backup (preferably paper)

Encryption is a major upside, too, but people new enough to Bitcoin that they need such a simple client, can survive without encryption (thye're not going to be holding a ton of coins) -- as long as they are made aware that they do not currently have encryption, and the associated risks (and other options).

I think it's extremely important that users have a clear way to backup their coins to offline media or paper, in such a way that they don't ever need to worry about it again.  Not only does it give users protection against hard-drive loss, it means that they may find it again in the far future when they haven't used Bitcoin in 2 years, and it reminds them that they still have coins (and they don't have to type in 1000 private keys to get their coins)

For that reason, I think Multibit is an excellent choice.  I haven't spent much time with it, but I do understand it to  satisfy (1) and (2) clearly, and (3) may be happening in the near future (along with encryption).  But I do wonder if it has enough staffing behind it to be the center of attention (no offense to jim618, but if this becomes the "de-facto" client for new users, we should make sure there's a lot of people available to support it -- what if a major security bug is found?  how long would it take the current team to identify, fix and test that bug?)

-Alan


On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 12:46 PM, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> wrote:
At the moment if you visit bitcoin.org then you're recommended to
download the full client. I think we all agree that at some point we
need to start presenting users with something more like this:


To get started, download wallet apps A or B.

If you'd like to contribute your computing resources to the Bitcoin
network and have a fast computer with an unfiltered internet
connection, download:

   - for desktop machines, Bitcoin-Qt
   - for servers, bitcoind



Obviously not that exact wording.

I personally feel it's a bit early for this, but it's true that users
are being turned away by the fact that they're pointed to Bitcoin-Qt
by default, so having some kind of roadmap or plan for changing that
would be good.

I think MultiBit is maturing into a client that I'd feel comfortable
recommending to end users who take the fast-start path, though it
still has a few serious lacks (encrypted wallets aren't released yet,
bloom filters will help performance a lot, needs to catch up with some
newer features). But there doesn't have to be a one true client.

The alternative, I guess, is to make Bitcoin-Qt have an SPV mode. I'm
not convinced this is the best use of time, but if somebody steps up
to do it, that could also work. MultiBit has some unique features that
are quite useful like integrating charting and exchange rate feeds.

What does everyone think on this?

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