Why do applets have such a low adoption level? [closed]

Answer 1

Installing and managing the multiple Java runtime versions required on your PC was a bother that most users didn't want to go trough, either. If it doesn't work out of the box, forget it!

Answer 2

Generally they are heavy, slow. Lot of them are plain ugly (early Swing looking like Xaw or Motif). The difference is, that the Sun is company which deals with heavy iron and corporate business, while Macromedia and Adobe are companies which always have dealt with graphics designers. So the Flash had the "wow factor", applets did not.

Answer 3

As mentioned, applets are somewhat heavy and old-fashioned. Sun is now trying to push JavaFX, which could well be the "next Flash".

Answer 4

I'll assume you're talking about Java applets.

I think one of the biggest advantages Flash had with adoption was one single development environment with attractive and easy to use tools. This was complimented by an abundance of training material. It is also basically single purpose, whereas Java has an enormous variety of uses and target audiences.

Answer 5

Up until quite recently, Java applets were fairly heavy. Any Java Applet requires the JVM to start up and load the applet, which can take some time on a modern machine and was even slower on the machines that were around when Java was introduced. Additionally, Java Applets are a bit more of a complex beast compared to Flash and there are a number of issues that arise as a result (ever need to sign your applets? it can potentially be a huge pain for the developer). Also, Flash quickly developed an ecosystem of products that did what people wanted (fun graphics!) quickly and easily, whereas in Java, anything other than buttons and checkboxes (stuff already provided at the base browser level) required some more work and did not have nearly the support that flash did.

Answer 6

The Java environment is heavy and unwieldy.
It takes several seconds for it to fire up and start running and it's usually a burden on CPU and memory. Flash on the other hand is considerably more lightweight.
Another factor is that Java applets are usually less visually attractive than flash.