Consider Ensign with their free FXCM datafeed. You can do most things with their charts and a lot you can't do elsewhere and you will have a back up feed if your brokers charts go down. Also service is brilliant as you have a direct connection to tech support which is manned US time and if all else fails you can phone in and they will sort out the problem. There are times when excellent support saves a lot of time and frustration and allows you to continue to make $$$.
I was a long term user and then switched to try others. In that time I read about the refresh problem but it had not affected me as I was using eSignal with Ensign and refresh was always great whereas IB guys were always getting problems. I came back to Ensign and seemed to miss all the problems with eSignal lagging and Ensign not refreshing. As for my current experience of Ensign + FXCM data it's excellent and eSignal cannot compare with the power of Ensign charts. I tend to use FXCM data for Fx and the Ensign refresh is perfect. The great thing about Ensign is service. Sierra is a good alternative and a little cheaper and has a free Fx feed. I'm stuck on Ensign because of some of the indicators and DYO's (Design Your Own) but Sierra is a heavyweight program like Ensign. Of course if you have IB then you have 2 free forex feeds which is a nice backup.
You forgot to mention account size? It makes a fair bit of difference, also, do you only want to trade the "majors" ?
Thanks for the info, I might give them another try seeing as they've got a 7-day free trial. It's got some useful tools, Pesavento is the main one I'm after as well as the play back feature.
I am currently looking into: #1-Strategy Runner for Forex #2-eSignal on Demand Forex ...both are non java-thankfully!!! and both would be able to access from my desktop icon... ...probably leaning towards eSignal on Demand Forex right now...thanks for the tip T-Bone Trader
you dont need to look any further than metatrader. Its free. Its a standalone software program, so no Java, its extremely flexible so you can set it up anyway you want and save it. And you can dowload it with free data from a number of brokers for FREE as a demo account. I dont see why anyone would ever pay for another forex charting program