Quote from: BitStick on February 08, 2013, 07:26:47 AM

yay i'm on the winning team with bitcoin QT Grin

I'm a total noob to bitcoins, is there any advantage to download another client or sign-up for an online wallet?
Eventually I want to have an interactive website so the web page can send and receive payments, etc

The advantage is mobility, lower cpu/memory usage.
Like i said, for an average user only looking to store/spend, using any of the light desktop clients(opensource and downloaded from trusted website) is fine.
For web wallets, there are 2 kinds

1) Hosted wallets
You have to trust the wallet provider to not run off with your coins or get compromised.(I would not use this for anything more than a few BTC)

2) Hybrid wallets (Blockchain.info)
Here the wallet and private keys are encrypted by a password only you know, such that even the server administrator cannot get to your keys.
Theoretically this is as safe as the desktop light clients.
Yet, you have to continually trust the service that it's source is not changed to send back your password to the server or that the server is compromised to send your password to a 3rd party.

Unless you read the entire javascript source everytime you login, you can never be 100% sure.

For all options, a compromised PC means you will lose your coins as soon as your wallet is decrypted.