I'm looking to purchase some Bitcoin but I don't have much idea about the best place to buy them. I've had a look at Coinbase but they seems to have so many negative reviews. Can anyone make any recommendations? I'm UK based if that makes a difference.
For wallets I really like using blockchain.info<p>- <a href="https://blockchain.info/wallet" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/wallet</a><p>It's free, well designed, secure (encrypted, two factor authentication), and there are mobile apps to access it anywhere.
Check out the How it Works and the FAQ:<p>- <a href="https://blockchain.info/wallet/how-it-works" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/wallet/how-it-works</a><p>- <a href="https://blockchain.info/wallet/wallet-faq" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/wallet/wallet-faq</a><p>For UK exchanges I'm not sure, maybe also check /r/bitcoin (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin</a>) and the Bitcoin Wiki (<a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Currency_exchanges" rel="nofollow">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Currency_exchanges</a>).
Unfortunately, <a href="https://blockchain.info/" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/</a> is bad idea for anything last year or so - under any non-zero level of [bitcon network] load it tends to show wrong values and stuff. Also, using hosted solutions for own wallet is not that great idea as you could think it is - site owner could ban your account, inject evil javascript etc.
<a href="https://electrum.org/" rel="nofollow">https://electrum.org/</a> is descent choice as a wallet.
MultiBit HD (<a href="https://multibit.org/" rel="nofollow">https://multibit.org/</a>) is possible alternative (not reached 1.0 so far)
<a href="https://localbitcoins.com/" rel="nofollow">https://localbitcoins.com/</a><p>I've personally not had problems with <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.coinbase.com/</a> thus far. I'm not a power user though, either.
Coinbase is good to get the bitcoins, I wouldn't use them as my wallet. I've heard bad stories of them closing accounts due to bitcoins being used somewhere that they do not approve of.<p>I use electrum on my own machine as my wallet
If you can, purchase from a Bitcoin ATM or using LocalBitcoins.com. Coinbase can be heavy-handed at times, but it's better than Circle by a country mile.