I removed the VR applet from this page [you can still link to a popup version from the thumbnail below], as it was drastically slowing load times, and kept stealing focus when the mouse cursor moved over it.
Ok, so the new JRE is way friendlier, installing jar file associations so that a jar file can be run simply by double clicking. If you want to try it, go to:
It is a bit of a memory hog [not quite as bad as aforementioned memo implies], and the sample "web start" apps are pretty clunky. And ugly. Boy, are they ugly. They also take between 7 and 10 seconds to launch on my machine (not including the rather anal constant checking online they do for new versions). Woo!
So why isn’t Java more popular? Why should the average user settle for running a windows app when they can download a 7MB runtime installer and execute hard-to-find non-standard looking apps that take 10 times as long to start up and look really ugly, occupying at least 4 times as much RAM? Your guess is as good as mine…