Are java applets a poor choice for new web content?

Question

I work for a government science based agency that provides a lot of technical information through our website. Web development is not really our strong suit, but we get by. A lot of our current content is delivered via Java applets. Recently we have had feedback from users that they cannot access various bits of the site, because their browsers (primarily Safari and Firefox) have disabled Java due to security issues. Of course this can be fixed in both cases by upgrading and/or changing preferences but it still raises a barrier that might be too high for non savvy users.

So my question is what is the probable future for Java applets? Is this an approach that is likely to become less common and the proportion of browser configurations that can't/won't run them increase? As I mentioned my organisation (and myself) are not web development experts so we don't have a good sense of the trends. Should new content be written in something other than Java applets (our most recently developed content uses JavaScript instead). Should we plan to convert the applets over in response to diminishing support?

Seise

Note that Java (the language in which applets are written) is completely different from Javascript (the language that powers the vast majority of web sites today). It is a good idea to disable Java in your browser (which is probably why you are getting feedback on this) but disabling Javascript will give you a much degraded browsing experience. – Haggadist

Thanks Greg, I am aware of the difference ( I wrote the JavaScript for our latest content delivery) but thanks for pointing it out, I'm sure it's a constant source of confusion! – Seise

Yeah, I see you showed that you knew the difference in the second paragraph. The first paragraph said "disabled Java script" which was misleading I think. – Haggadist

Ooopps! Yes I see that, it changes the whole meaning of the question. I've edited it now, thanks for that. – Seise

So to clarify, you suggest it is a good idea to disable Java in your browser. If one does that, much of the content on our site can't be used, as it is delivered via java applets. It sounds like you are strongly suggesting we should re-write these into JavaScript or some other non JRE solution? Note that most of this stuff was written a decade ago and not touched since. – Seise

Unfortunately, yes that is what I would recommend. An increasing number of people using newer browsers will be unable to access your existing content. – Haggadist

@GregHewgill, wait am I reading wrongly or... you are saying that new browsers won't support Java Applets? – Downstage

I am maintaining an applet web-client in my company. My thought is that Oracle is not doing good job on applet. I have seen it upgrading the Java which caused new problems last month. The variety of java versions also yields inconsistent errors which are hard to isolate. Also, the performance is unsatisfying as at least 5~10 seconds are required to run the JVM even by Intel i7 processor. I would recommend the FireBreath for multiplatform web-client. – Johnie

Answer 1

The current trend is pretty clearly toward less support of Java applets in client-side browsers. It never really worked very well and there are now better ways of presenting dynamic information in web sites.

Building a new web site today that relies on a Java applet for content delivery would be a poor technology choice.

Haggadist

Why wouldn't new browsers have Java applet support? The latest browsers all seem to support it by default (unless the user went on and disable it himself) – Downstage

@Pacerier: Here are two articles from the last couple of years that show Java is a security hole: f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002285.html and f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002413.html. Two weeks ago, Apple disabled Java on OS X for all users: macrumors.com/2013/01/11/… – Haggadist

this means that applets can hack users' computers if that's what the applet writer wants.. If your users trust you (for example, I wouldn't have any reason to suspect Runescape.com of hijacking my computer) then there's no problem there isn't it? – Downstage

First of all it's not true hat Java Applets are declining. They are growing and have done so for quite some while. While some users are uninstalling Java they probably where not using Java Applets in the first place. Applets have never been a very common technology as even most Java developers targets Flash when making rich web applications. While there have been security holes in Java it's nonsense that it's unsecure. Compare it's track record with Flash, Firefox, Chrome and IE. What you will find that Java are a lot more secure than those. – Rugging

As far as I can see the only reason to not use Java Applets are compatibility with users software stack. – Rugging

@user1657170: I suggest you come up with some references to back up your claims, otherwise it's just nonsense. "Most Java developers targets Flash" is nonsense in any case. – Haggadist

I suggest that you use Google as this is quite available and well known information. Lack of references are not evidence that something is nonsense. I don't have the time and interest to be someone's research puppet. You can start bu searching for Java board games because that's probably the most common public use of Applets. As a consultant the amount of intranet applet jobs are also increasing. – Rugging

And your last statement are nonsensical. Angry birds are a good high profile example of a Java browser application. I know this because they are the ones that open sourced one of the two most used framework's for Java to Flash and JavaScript crosscompilation. There are a number of open source games that use that framework to target browsers. – Rugging

Answer 2

Using Java applet for content delivery,as pointed out,is indeed a poor choice of Technology.
Modern browsers are capable of doing almost anything applets can offer. Hence,the use of applets have become rather redundant nowadays.

Instil

Uhm; no. Modern browsers are far from capable of doing almost anything applets can offer. First of all there are a huge difference in performance. A java applet could have an efficient binary protocol for communicating with servers, JavaScript can do that to but do not have an efficient way of handling binary data. There are nothing even close to the Swing framework when it comes to GUI building in modern browser. Also with raised privileges Java can access OpenGL, cameras etc. Not a subset of EGL like WebGL but the full stack. And this are only a few things browsers cant do. – Rugging

Answer 3

Firefox and Chrome are pushing for JavaScript and Native Client and have disabled Java for political reasons, not security reasons. There where a short period of time where some specific versions of the Java Plugin where a security problem. Apple blocked these versions, while FF and Chrome used it as an excuse to disable it completely.

What technology are best pends entirely on your use case. If development time are the most important factor I would say that Applets using the Swing framework are the way to go. You can use the Swing designer in Netbeans to quickly make GUI:s. Also the performance of a Swing based GUI are superior to that of Flash or HTML+JavaScript.

But keep in mind that browser support will be limited, users will get security questions etc, However if the data you are exposing are sufficiently interesting to the user this would not matter.

If I where to design a startup website that needs to work well in all browsers, fit into search engines etc Applets would be a dead end.

If I where to design a complex website that presents data that are already in demand from an existing userbase, I would go for Java Applets.

As a third option you can do both. Make a simplified website using HTML+JavaScript and a more advanced Applet version using Swing. This would be viable option even for sites that need to be attractive to new users, where some materials would be accessible for search engines and a front page would work in all browsers.

Rugging