Remove "Third party" bubble disclaimer for Electrum

[saivann]

As suggested by @mikehearn, it seems more reasonable to remove the "Third party" disclaimer now. Electrum is now connecting to a random server from a list of 22 servers at each startup.

Additionally, I'd like to suggest we replace MultiBit by Electrum as the "default" recommended wallet for Desktops for the following reasons:

Deterministic wallets ( No address reuse ).
Offers a good backup plan to the user at first start.
Easier to install ( No Java, MultiBit Linux installer has a few glitches )

Many nice features from MultiBit are also supported by Electrum, like localization and loading/saving wallets from/to files. Maybe MultiBit could be set as the default wallet again once MultiBit HD is released. Meanwhile, promoting a different wallet would promote a little more diversity.

[schildbach]

I wonder how the 22 (hardcoded?) servers figure compares to the tens of thousands (dynamic) nodes MultiBit can connect to, security wise? Where are these 22 servers located? The server is free software, right?

[mikehearn]

I don't think we should be suggesting one particular recommended wallet any more. Electrum got a lot more decentralised in recent times, but it still isn't using the P2P network at all, so it would still be a major step backwards for decentralisation. Why bother encouraging people to run thousands of nodes, which we do, and then direct people to software that doesn't use even them?

A couple more reasons:

1. it's simply not targeted at ordinary non-technical consumers. That's fine, not every wallet has to be. But what happens when you click download for Electrum? The first thing you see on the website's download page is source code. The second thing you see is a list of commands for Linux. There's a Mac DMG but it's not signed for Gatekeeper so it won't open on recent versions of MacOS X. Instead it's GPG signed (which is ignored by 99% of downloaders and 100% of antivirus apps), by a guy known only as "Animazing". Does that inspire confidence? Would you trust your money to such an app? That's just one example amongst several of such issues.

2. I'm working on HD wallets for bitcoinj based wallets at the moment. The core algorithms including the mnemonic code support are already implemented. So what happens when those wallets catch up with this particular feature of Electrum? Do we change things around yet again?

This is why I don't think we should be getting into the business of trying to pick the "best" wallet, just having a few basic principles, like decentralisation + a basic level of professionalism, then showing people a gallery (as we used to do). They're all converging on the same feature sets and levels of performance over time anyway.

[saivann]

Fair enough, are you OK however about removing the disclaimer for Electrum?

@schildbach Yes server list is hardcoded and is clearly not a replacement for the P2P network. Server's code is open-source so you can also run your own server.

@mikehearn I will experiment with the screenshot idea. I'm not fan of duplicate listing, it is perhaps easier making sure there is a visible distinction for Bitcoin-Qt / Armory so visitors are simply aware these two choices aren't suited to get started within minutes.

[mikehearn]

Yes, of course, I'm OK with it being listed up next to MultiBit as well. After all, I filed the issue to get this discussion rolling :)

I think we should start to move away from recommending one specific wallet, though now I ponder it more, perhaps we can extend the status quo a bit longer by focusing on platform specific recommendations. For instance, maybe on Windows we should recommend MultiBit, on MacOS Hive (once it's ready) and on Linux Electrum? That gives some variety whilst playing to the strengths of each wallet - Electrum is clearly developed on Linux, with Linux foremost in mind.

The devil is in the details, as always! But the Electrum guys did put in a lot of work towards moving more towards a decentralised SPV model even if it's not as far as MultiBit/Hive/Android wallet, and that should be recognised.