Anyone use E-Trade? If so, how "good" is it?

So since everyone is telling me that Social Security is going to more or less suck by the time i get older i figure I'd buy a little stock.

I know a few brokers but apparently it may be cheaper to just use a site like e-trade.

So since i don't have a FaceBook or know anyone that uses it IRL, I'd figure I'd ask here since there's such a variety of people.

If you're looking to do actual research and know what you are looking at it has a wealth of tools that you are basically paying more per-trade in order to have access to them.

I used zecco for a bit. Cheap trades but no bells and whistles.

I'd look into an IRA/Roth IRA before going after individual stocks. The tax benefits usually make it worthwhile assuming you don't have a 401k with a match plan through your employer. This is also going of the notion that you want to save for the future rather than play around with stocks for the fun of it.

I will warn you that getting involved in the stock market is an extremely time consuming task. You need to be devoted to monitoring your shares and everything that affects them. There is no feasible way to justify your investment if you aren't willing to devote as much as you can into earning anything.

Well I'm fairly young by stock owning standards (3rd year of college) and what I'm looking to do is buy stock for long term investments and continue to buy and manage it (sell if necessary ) over a long period of time (20 years give or take) and then more or less let it sit and grow after a certain cut off period.

I have no idea whom I'll be working for after college (some video game company) so i should also ask if waiting till I (more or less) have a "career" may be a better option to take.

@above
Devotion is no problem, the reason I am so interested now is that it's more or less guaranteed that Nintendo is going to cause a stir in the electronics industry (I'm not that big of a fan of 3D but with the numbers movies like Avatar are making, and how companies seem to have a hard on for 3D TVs, it's pretty much assured a lot of companies are going to try and jump on the "3d" bandwagon) and i want a piece of w/e they're cooking up.

Well I'm fairly young by stock owning standards (3rd year of college) and what I'm looking to do is buy stock for long term investments and continue to buy and manage it (sell if necessary ) over a long period of time (20 years give or take) and then more or less let it sit and grow after a certain cut off period.

I have no idea whom I'll be working for after college (some video game company) so i should also ask if waiting till I (more or less) have a "career" may be a better option to take.

@above
Devotion is no problem, the reason I am so interested now is that it's more or less guaranteed that Nintendo is going to cause a stir in the electronics industry (I'm not that big of a fan of 3D but with the numbers movies like Avatar are making, and how companies seem to have a hard on for 3D TVs, it's pretty much assured a lot of companies are going to try and jump on the "3d" bandwagon) and i want a piece of w/e they're cooking up.

With the kind of investment you're talking about you should really look at Roth IRA's. You don't want online trading services to just buy buy buy. Uh i thought Etrade was alright. I can't really recommend anything better because other stuff i've tried was cheaper and like whoever before me said you are just paying for more bells and whistles. if you know exactly what stocks you are going to go after, i'd go with a more bare-minimum service.