Forex trading practice with specialized simulation software is much more efficient than using a regular demo account.
The most important advantage of the Simulator is that it saves you a lot of time.
Why it is possible. There is internal redundancy in the markets: not all the time you spend there is equally valuable. The periods of “dead” markets can take a substantial share of time, but they add very little value (if any!) to your practice.
The Simulator can reduce this redundancy. You can choose to skip the useless time and only practice when there is action! Which is impossible on a demo account: you have to always spend all the time.
How it is working. In Offline mode (principally unavailable on a demo account), the Simulator has pause/resume functionality and provides the data feed speed controls. The same is possible in Online mode, with the Timeshift feature – the Simulator lets you pause the live data stream.
When you resume, you can increase the data speed if the market situation justifies that. In a way, you can “squeeze the air out” of the slow moving markets. Which is nothing else than time saving.