Platforms vs. Web Clients

A quick question that I haven’t really found a lot of information on yet…

some brokers carry both web based and client side based platforms (forex.com for example) and some only have web based (OANDA maybe?)

Can anyone discuss with me the pros and cons of both solutions?

My personal feelings is if a client side platform is available I should take it but I’m a bit oldschool and feel weird about running software purely based off a java client or something.

Partially why I ask is until I build my office, I’m running on an older imac where only web based clients work but I’ll be moving into a Windows 7 environment soon and will want the most comfortable, reliable environment and solution I can have with the fewest headaches.