I have been using IB on and off for almost a decade and for the most part have been happy with the service and products they offer. I don't need much, if any, hand-holding so their notorious customer service is not an issue. I use them almost exclusively now to trade currencies and have had no real issues (execution wise) with them. There is that little extra currency left in your account that can become annoying, but if you trade the same pair enough, it tends to either zero itself out or grow large enough to cross normally. Again, not really an issue.

Problems I have with them are usually platform related. I have to get a front end to trade thru their API (NT is personal choice) to effectively trade easily as the TWS is bogged down with TOO many features and mistakes are more easily made.

Now that I am getting into equities more, one of the major complaints I have is the commission pricing for direct routed orders thru the API as opposed to Smart Routing. For any type of automated or semi-automated trading, this can be a big issue.

Also, the TWS supposed "ease of use" and lack of intuitive nature is frustrating in a world of much easier to use order entry systems (hello Lightspeed). And the constant need to issue upgrades to the TWS without beta testing it first (actually, we, the IB customers, beta test the software ... in a live trading environment!!) is also frustrating and in many ways unprofessional for a firm this size to act.

I would love to see the TWS morph from a one size fits all solution to one where the user can choose the modules he/she would like to use and not be bogged down buy the bloat. Would also like to see them issue a version ported over to C or one of it's variants as the Java platform becomes too much of a memory hog if left running.

Overall, I give them high marks because of all the products offered to trade that NO ONE broker can offer the public. To be able to trade stocks and options and futures and currencies and foreign markets and have all (available) funds kept in one insured account is outstanding. Now, if they would just spend a little more money on CS and less on programming upgrades would make them more appealing to the general public, but I fear their goal is to become more institutional and less retail as time goes forward.

I was less impressed by TWS’s ease of use. Still used it for several years for mid-range swing-trading without a problem. It was a year ago, when I changed my trading style to short-range active daytrading, that I experienced the shortcomings of TWS’s BookTrader. Luckily I found ButtonTrader as API-front-end to TWS. Now I have my ideal environment: ButtonTrader as front-end and IB as my Broker is unbeatable (at least for my trading-style).

On the other hand, the down sides: very bad tech support (good luck if you find a problem on the software, it may take weeks of back and forth to fix it), subpar (at best) software and horrible market data.

Regarding market data, the DOM for SPY and ES and others is a joke. It almost everyday gets out-of-price orders stuck on the queue and you just can't take them out - calling IB and staying on the phone does not help at all either, and sometimes they shift you among 3 or 4 different people on the phone and them the call drops!!

Also, the software (TWS stand alone version) sucks. It is slow, it freezes frequently (even in a strong computer) and (most annoying) IB frequently releases new versions of it THAT COME WITH SOMETHING SCREWED THAT USED TO WORK before the upgrade - so the upgrades fix some things and screw others - frequently. this software is subpar at best.

Tech support is ridiculous, I won't even mention it. It suffices to say that they shift you among 3, 4, or 5 people when you call (back and forth) and then the call drops!!!

So, basically, it is a diamond in a rough. Has some annoyances but it is strong on the most important areas. Please note you can use a different software and market data with IB, which solves most of the problems described above. But I wish that IB would just provide better software and market data - that would improve them immensely. Regarding tech support, forget about it, that is not and will never be (in my opinion) the IB's strength.