who is a good online stock broker company

Charles Schwab. It has been pimped on this board a lot, but they offer a pretty good product.

Free checking account that has the brokerage account tied to it. You don't necessarily have to use the checking account, but its a pretty awesome product by itself. No atm fees (all fees refunded at the end of the month). Free checks, no fees.

The brokerage account offers a wide range of trading. For a first account you will probably be interested in mutual funds, ETFs and stocks at a minimum. $8.95 a trade I believe.

If you ever set up an IRA through them, it will be linked to these other accounts.

I like Ameritrade, easy to use interface, great customer service. I wish they had more research (they have more then Etrade) and maybe some excel functionality (but that's fanciful thinking probably as I'm used to another professional platform)

I also have an Etrade account. I only use them to place foreign trades as they can trade like 30 different markets (not thru global trader) for 9.99 which is an unbeatable value proposition. But compared to TD, Etrade is not as user friendly IMO.

Never tried Schwabb.

But if you don't demand a lot Share Builder and Trade king charge half the commission. I'll probably switch to them when I get around to it

For a newcomer, Scottrade is the way to go. Plus it is the cheapest per trade.

I liked TD Ameritrade when I used it. I switched over to Interactive Brokers for futures and I'm a fan of it as well. IB has much lower transaction costs but is a little less user friendly.

I used Etrade for a long time, then switched to Scottrade because they have local offices, one less than a mile from my house. Trust me when I say that comes in handy at some very critical times. The platforms/products and costs are all going to be pretty similar.

I have scottrade which I'm pretty
Happy with, no complaints. I believe I chose them bc they had the lowest costs per trade, which I don't know if still true.