I chose hotspot because I tested their demo and was very impressed with the low spreads and good volatility. However, I found out that the demo account often has smaller spreads than the live account for the exotics and crosses. They still seem better than my previous brokers (MIG, Oanda, and the lousy IBFX), but I've heard a lot of good things about IB and wanted to compare between the two of them to see which is better on a live account.