Which do you prefer: Java Web Start, or Java Applets?

Question

Which do you think is better as a programmer, and as a end user, and why?

Answer 1

Applets are usually slow, horrible, inappropriate in a browser, can't be printed, make everything else feel slow... I just hate when I go somewhere and an applet starts loading. Applets are a big failure and are fortunately dying slowly.

Web Start is nice for applications that are made to be desktop applications and solves the deployment issue (centralized deployment). Applications are downloaded to be executed in a JVM outside the browser. They can be linked to the desktop, started offline... Last but not least, you choose to use a Web Start application or not.

Applets : 0 - Web Start : 1

EDIT: I made the first sentence a little bit less generic. There are successful implementation of applets, no doubts about it. I just have a negative global perception because I've seen more wrong applets or usages than good ones.

Answer 2

From my experience, customers don't want their programs to be running inside a browser. But, from Java6 update 10, applets can be running outside of the browser in a separate process. This appealing feature might fill the gap between the applet and JWS.