I've recently got a new computer and am running Fedora on it, which basically makes it impossible for me to run the Satoshi client until the devs go out of their way to build an rpm.
My old computer was/is running Ubuntu. I've had to do a clean install in the hopes of fixing some major issues it has. It crashes a lot and when it does that it screws up Bitcoin's ability to load the block index. So, I'll spend a bunch of time trying to load the entire blockchain so that I can access my full balance, but before the entire blockchain finishes downloading, my computer crashes again, thus screwing up the block index, meaning I need to reinstall the Satoshi Client all over again. So, I'm done with that. I'm ready to toss my old computer into the garbage bin.
Actually, I'm thinking about installing Windows XP on there. My first question is can I put a wallet.dat file that I had from Ubuntu into my Windows Bitcoin wallet and get my balance? If so, then at least I can transfer my balance into a blockchain.info/wallet.
My next question has to do with the safety of the blockchain.info/wallets.
I'm able to backup an encrypted wallet and send it to my email. That's nice. The website claims that it, or Multibit can import the wallet. What about Mt. Gox? For example, if I can't get Multibit running on my Fedora, and if for any reason blockchain.info goes down permanently, how else can I get my balance back?
My last and most important question is about the security of the blockchain.info wallet. Right now when I decrypt my blockchain.info/wallet I do it through a browser. Blockchain.info uses GoDaddy as their certificate authority, which means they have access to every password that gets used to decrypt wallets. Not only do I not trust GoDaddy, I don't trust the entire Certificate Authority system at all, since I don't trust any corporate entity, period. Can somebody address these concerns? Am I missing something? Does GoDaddy really not have access to the passwords to our wallets?
All GoDaddy does is sign the certificates that the web server presents to you. It's all about a chain of trust and they never see your passwords or have any interaction with the server at all. It's a process worth understanding as from what I understand, similar principles are used in bitcoin itself.