Java Applets Resurrection?

According to the Ajaxian, the Java Browser Plug-In has been rewritten with a couple of cool improvements.

Applet start-up, for instance, doesn't block your browser anymore. That's a great improvement, because it was a big pain point in my eyes. If the site loads completely while your JVM starts up in the background, I guess everything will feel much smoother. In conjunction with the improved start up time in Java Update N aka. Consumer JRE it could be a joy to use applets again.

This improvement is achieved by running the Java Browser Plug-In in a separate OS process, which has other advantages. It won't tear down your browser in case the JVM crashes. Editor's Daily Blog on java.net covers the basics on the improvements and has a couple of more links on applets.