Another possibility may be that he wasn't aware of light clients, and just assumed that he had to install a full node client, which might be a disturbing factor for a newbie. Either way, there are enough light clients available.
I use both desktop and mobile clients from Electrum, and thus far haven't had any problems. In the Google play store there are quite some complaints concerning app crashes of the mobile client, but I personally don't experience any problems.
Blockchain is web based and mobile application one. There are plenty of the web based wallet but this alone will give the wallet id, 2FA, secured with the OR scanning on the connecting to the application and many more features.
Still it is hackable wallet and I knew some who lost their money on using the blockchain wallet buddy.
True that it can be hacked, there are complains here locally about a local wallet that her wallet has been hacked but I can smell some negligence with it by signing up phishing link.