The java applet's possibility to gently jump over the sandbox fence was probably the most terrifying feature of java which probably put Java on an equal footing

The java applet's possibility to gently jump over the sandbox fence was probably the most terrifying feature of java which probably put Java on an equal footing as Adobe Flash, i.e. a potentially dangerous browser extension which requires regular updates (Flash and Java updaters were omnipresent in the Microsoft Windows tray in these days, isn't it?) and which the average user does not understand. That's a pity because both Adobe Flash as well as Java Applets were interesting pieces of software for certain applications. However, due to their availablity they were abused anywhere. I remember some 90s DHTML sites having one Java applet per navigation bar button just because the effect was looking nicely. This was the same kind of bloat we experience with huge JavaScript libraries today. Probably the browser plugins were even easier to control (i.e. disable as a user) as an ubiquitous JavaScript is :-/