Mate,
Its horse for courses but trading platform use interactive brokers, pretty complicated and not novice stuff but well worth spending the time to get used to it and trading costs very competitive and one of the best around, >£7k starting funds required. Always use different charting that what my broker offers for obvious reasons. Dukascopy also good with less starting funds, depends what your after as always. Not for everyone and will say it that although i like to challenge SB's they are great for getting your feet wet and do have a place in the trading world. anyway g/l with all