A bitcoin wallet is the at the foundation of your experience with bitcoin. Due to the necessity to keep your b-coin safe and secure but still accessible, there are many varieties of wallets currently written which put more emphasis on either instant usability or redundancy from backup. Here we list some of the current best implementations for desktop/web-based wallets convenient for all clients
Electrum – Lightweight Bitcoin Client (Desktop)
The one, which is easiest to use is Electrum. Its advantage is easy to backup and most elegant solutions to having a desktop bitcoin wallet currently. It comes in two parts, a server-side installation, and a desktop client, but for most users, the desktop side of it is all you will need. It can be run on windows/mac and Linux. Upon installing and opening the electrum wallet, you will be presented with a 12-word seed which generates all the addresses used in your wallet. This makes long-term backups incredibly easy as it requires just writing down or printing out these 12 words for eternal recovery of the wallet should your hard drive become corrupted. This is also one of the easiest ways to store bitcoin long term as it requires little technical knowledge.
Blockchain – web-based bitcoin wallet
The blockchain is currently one of the robust-implemented web-based wallet solutions available. Bitcoin private address is not stored here, so they nobody can see this. Rather encrypt your wallet’s private key and store it in the cloud and run a service which links between your browser and your private keys. On top of this, they offer great security with 2-factor authentication and backups send to your mailbox. They have great tutorials and information so check out their pages for more on the security of the bitcoin wallets.
Mycellium – Android B-coin Client
Use the bitcoin wallet Mycelium on your smartphone. It uses super-nodes which means it installs & runs immediately and doesn’t need to download the blockchain. It also has support for a number of features including restoring bitcoins from backup, a pin code to protect your storage and supports BIP38 secured personal passwords. Several new options coming down the line are very exciting including almost instantaneous confirmation of funds transfer through double-spend checking and peer to peer cash-to-coin exchanges.