I haven't been keeping up with Java development for a while and I'm thinking of developing a couple of Applet games or something to get back in. I'm currently researching the market, and I was wondering if anyone has any answers to the following: 1. How popular is Java? (the % of browsers where Java is available) 2. What are the prevelant Java versions? (I do have some data on this below if anyone's interested) 3. What happens when an applet is embedded in a webpage and no JVM is installed? What is the behavior on Firefox and Internet Explorer? Relevant, up-to-date answers I have not been able to find on Google. For #3, I haven't access to a computer where Java isn't installed right now so I can't test myself (Java is one of the first things I download on a fresh install, old habit I guess :) However, for #2, I have some of my own data. I collected some basic information (via my Java games website) over the course of about 2 years to determine which Java versions people had installed and got the following:

Version     #Users
1.1:             0
1.2:             0
1.3:           446
1.4:        13,193
1.5:        67,129
1.6:        56,993
1.7:             3

Unfortunately that doesn't tell me what % of people who tried to play the games had Java at all(a silly lack of foresight on my part.) Cheers everyone

Quote:Original post by The Rug
1. How popular is Java? (the % of browsers where Java is available)

All Macs have Java installed by default, As do several of the more prevalent Linux distros. Unfortunately, some elderly Windows XP installations came with Microsoft's Java implementation pre-installed, but on all other Windows machines it must be installed manually.

Quote:2. What are the prevelant Java versions? (I do have some data on this below if anyone's interested)

A typical Mac will be somewhere in the 1.4 - 1.6 range, and Linux should be similar. Microsoft's implementation was of version 1.1, but anyone who has manually installed it in the last few years should be at or above 1.3.

Here are some statistics. I'll leave it up to you to decide how reliable they are, I see some links towards the bottom you might be able to follow up on.

Quote:Original post by rip-off
Here are some statistics. I'll leave it up to you to decide how reliable they are, I see some links towards the bottom you might be able to follow up on.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say not very reliable. According to their methodology the total sampling is of only 4,600 people, all of whom own their own computer, and are being paid for taking the survey through a custom rewards points system. Even disregarding the tiny sample size, those survey-reward schemes usually attract the type of people who spend way too many unproductive hours on their computer - and likely all play browser-based games (which require flash to be installed) in between surveys.