Hi FXHalo,
I wouldn't say I'm the be all and end all of Forex knowledge but I've been around long enough to have made all of the mistakes that I mentioned in my reply.
Before I even risked a cent, I forward tested my system for 2 years.
Forward testing is far superior to back testing.
The difference is that when you back test you look for patterns from past data which is pretty inaccurate as everyday is different and there is no gaurantee that the past will equal the present or future.
Forward testing is where you test your system on a demo in real time which gives you a better feel for how everything is going to work.
Also if you are looking for the best currency to trade it would have to be the EUR/USD pair.
People love the Cable (GBP/USD) because on average it moves twice as much as the EUR/USD which means far more profit for them however I find it quite volatile.
It will give you a great signal only to have it reverse again and stop you out 30 mins later.
The EUR/USD however tends to stay true to its signals and requires less pips as a stop (20 on average compared with 30 - 40 for GBP/USD).
But enough of that.
To answer your question, I used Oanda as a demo because the EFX demo platform is very unstable and Oandas prices and spreads are generally in line with EFX (except at U.S. news time)
Live I trade with EFX because they don't manipulate prices like Oanda seem to.
Just read the reviews on this site about both brokers and you will see what I mean.
One last thing is charting - I pay for my charts. (Intellicharts)
People rave on about Metatrader but I can't stand it and only use it for COT data.
There are 4 reasons for this:
1. The price shown on Metatrader is always at least 2 pips out from the price shown on EFX.
2. Visually Metatraders candles are very scattered and gappy whereas the Intellichart candles move seamlessly from one candle to the next.
3. The candle formation on Metatrader can be vastly different from Intellichart. A perfect hammer setup on Intellichart can look just like an ordinary candle on metatrader hence you miss the opportunity.
An example was a short trade I did a while back which went in my favour from the weeks start to finish.
The weekly chart on Metatrader showed the previous weeks candle (which was up) and the weekly candle where I started my trade as nothing special, however Intellichart showed that both candles formed tweezer tops (a good signal of a trend reversal) which had followed a steady up trend.
Because of this I had a pretty good idea that the trend was going to change so I could leave the trade open. In the end the currency pair steadily fell over the next month.
If I was using Metatrader I would be fretting about my trade reversing on me due to the insignificant signal it showed.
4. Metatrader has no 45min timeframe which is vital to me to confirm trading decisions and track/manage my trades.
Hope this all helps - Happy trading!