Hi Mothership.

I am using IC Markets, due to their very low spreads on the ECN account. I am biased to Australian brokers though, as I live in Australia and there are pretty good laws here for protecting your cash. Downside to these guys is their swaps are pretty bad, but I think this is the same for most Aussie brokers, and also they do not pay interest on the cash you keep with them. Other than they are awesome.

In choosing a broker I looked at http://www.myfxbook.com/forex-broker-swaps and http://www.fxblue.com/spread/symbol.aspx to compare swaps and spreads. Make sure you factor in and understand which brokers charge brokerage on top of a spread, and how to convert it so that you can compare like for like. I also read heaps of forums for all the complaints that people have with each broker.

I am using MT4, which requires a fair amount of messing around until everything is in place. IC markets requires a certain amount of volume before they will let you connect with API, and then you need to write the API as well. I suggest API connection is quite valuable, and I would not use a broker that does not have that capability...as at some point I think I will switch to API connection, however there seems to be lots of work in writing an API. Read the brokers section for heaps more discussion on brokers.

Hope this helps.