I repectfully disagree. It costs a lot of money to build and mantain all the features. Do I want to pay higher commissions or platform fees so that the platform has a thousand useless indicators? No! I believe there are third party add on to IB, like DAS that have better charts. Like many people here, I had to relactantly accept IB for what it is.
Not the stupidest post you've made ever, Mick -- but perhaps just today's. If you want a nice, safe consumer car-platform, then go drive OptionWunderbutt 2.0 around for a while, with their $3.50 tickets and $x more per contracts. They'll love you. Me? I'll suffer me some IB anytime -- nearly 12 years, soon. And I'll bitch loudly whenever it's called for, and I'll point out at other times, "This ain't no sissy thang." Funny, but whenever the market goes on a binge? I loves me my T.W.S. bigtime. And right now, btw, I'm still at my desk, slaving away because I can't get TWS to give me historic numbers that I can download, so's I can backtest strategies in a trend-exploitation scheme that seems to be all the rage nowadays. Rather than do it by eye (from TWS), I tried/failed with TradingView (and just today quit), only to find that had I put all that effort into a spreadsheet, I would've been done already. A LOT of time lost. But if you're going to love IB/TWS, you'd best be comfy with "rolling your own" analysis, as I've had to do with option markets (the last 5-6 years), and now with trend-trading (much of calendar 2018, in dribs and drabs).... So, back to work wit' me.
If a supplier is not prepared to build a quality item which works 100%, then it should never be built or offered. Simple! Offering a flawed service is a reflection of a flawed builder/scammer.
I'll be you've never eaten fast food, either. Nor worn blue jeans when a nice worsted wool slack was around. Nor bought the cheap beer when temperatures popped. "Scammers, all!" you cried! "Sue the bastards! Poor Mick. Keep up the good fight -- whatever it is. (But -- IB beats in cost. IB beats in execution. IB beats in interest on cash and on margin. Jus' sayin'....)
I agree with tommcinnis, I don't use IB for their charts. I use it to execute trades at a good price for a low commission with high reliability. I also appreciate their free API. They are the only broker that I know of which offers an API for pulling data. So I pull data through their API and make my own charts customized to how I like to view data.
Yeah, that seems to happen regularly during weekends: their historical data farms being offline (especially the ones that have US products such as stocks, ETFs, futures). I guess it's IB's way of forcing you to take a day off during the weekend.
A recurring theme with IB appears they have known software issues but fail to resolve them in a speedy manner if at all. Me thinks the original coders of the platform have left the building, gone to greener pastures.