Is the 'for purchase' FitDay that runs on ones own PC so much better than the free web application?

And do the two work together. That is, if I were to purchase and install the PC programme and then was out of town and entered food or excercise on the web page would my web data be transferable to the PC data when I returned home?

You cannot transfer data in between the web version and the PC version. This is my one big complaint about the system.

I've used the PC version for a while and I find it easy to use. You can copy/paste stuff from one day to another. Doing custom meals are simple (I do a lot of homemade stuff). I'll enter everything for a single serving until it's made and divided up. I highlight everything, cut it, change it to the number of servings (or ounces) then paste it back in. I also do custom foods as headers (ie ---- Breakfast ----) so it's easy to see things at a glance.

I don't use the download version specifically because it doesn't interface with the web version. I am too reliant on being able to enter my data wherever/whenever I have an internet connection, so I just use the web version.

From what I understand, the PC version does have more reporting and tracking.

I didn't really care for the "upgraded" version. The free one works fine, and I have a Mac now, so it wouldn't work anywho.

The PC version has more reports, and is easier to use when creating custom foods. I preferred using it, but I am a data junkie and liked the additional data analysis tools.

I entered my "plan" in the morning and then I emailed myself any deviations from that plan and adjusted every evening. It seemed to work well for me.

Thanks all, for answering. I am happy with the web version although, as you say, custom recipes are not easy. I use nutritiondata.com to create a recipe, once I get the nutrition data sheet for the recipe I manually enter that as a custom food. It works ok. FitDay is much better for keeping a log of one's food comsuption over time than ND.