Where did all the java applets go? [closed]

When java was young, people were excited about writing applets. They were cool and popular, for a little while. Now, I never see them anymore. Instead we have flash, javascript, and a plethora of other web app-building technologies.

Why don't sites use java applets anymore?

I'm also curious: historically, why do you think this occurred? What could have been done differently to keep Java applets alive?

Solution 1:

I think Java applets were overshadowed by Flash and ActionScript (pun unintended), being much easier to use for what Java Applets were being used at the time (animations + stateful applications).

Flash's success in this respect in turn owes to its much smaller file sizes, as well as benefiting from the Sun vs. Microsoft suit that resulted in Microsoft removing the MSJVM from Internet Explorer, at a time of Netscape's demise and IE's heavy dominance.

Solution 2:

1) AWT made for horrid UIs. Swing improved on that but it was too late, because...
2) Microsoft dropped support for Java in the browser (its propietary MSJVM), and before it did, it would only support the last version it released, which was roughly JDK 1.1 compatible.
3) So today you cannot be sure that an applet will run on the majority of non-developer machines, unlike flash.

Same can be said of ActiveX by the way.

Solution 3:

For what it's worth, Sun is pouring money and resources into applets again. They've made some really significant improvements in JDK 1.6.10 to mitigate a lot of the 'clunkiness' applets used to exhibit. For instance, with this update, you can display your own custom loading image/animation while your applet loads, and the plugin has been put on a major diet to improve performance.

They've also embarked upon an initiative to directly compete with Flash and Silverlight - JavaFX.

Whether or not the market will respond to any of this remains to be seen, but it's certainly a fascinating move on Sun's part given Flash's dominance in the market place.

Solution 4:

By the time Java's GUI API stopped totally sucking, everyone was using Flash. And even today, Java is no where near as good as Flash at doing fancy graphics.

Solution 5:

I assume it's because java is a "real", ie. general purpose language. To make an applet, you have to write code, and there aren't any shortcuts.

Now that flash etc have come along, you can pretty much just drap and drop your way through making a cool animation for your website. This is a much lower barrier for entry - you don't have to know how to program in order to get a flash animation working. So flash proliferates, and java applets are hardly used anymore.