Yep - Applets never really worked. The problem was the interface between the browser and the applet was buggy.

I wrote a very simple applet in the early days - it leaked memory - nothing I could do.

Also the deployment story - with a single shared version of the JVM ( at a time it was moving quite fast ) in the browser - was an issue.

Quickly decided Applets were dud, but Java itself was fantastic. It's easy to forget what the other options were at the time if you wanted to write complex servers or cross-platform desktop apps.