Hi all; apologies for the long post. All of the major browsers recently dumped applets or intend to, including Firefox. I have spent the last five years developing a ranking engine web site and software based around a 64,839 line Applet that needs to pass customised ranking criteria back to the server once the user has finished modifying the preset criteria to their needs (the ranking criteria is stored as graphs). Web Start is simply not going to do the job and its too big a project to start from scratch and rebuild it in something else. The whole project, including test data SQL code is over 234,000 lines of code and was due to be launched in March next year. Seriously, they could not have picked a worse time to dump Applets. The following is a bit of an overview of the engine. Please; to any Mozilla staff reading this, this engine is well worth supporting... Even if just one browser supported Applets, I could convince people to switch browsers. This technology will change the web and computing like no other, and will attract a lot of users, so I would please ask that Mozilla consider reinstating the option of running Applets. The web site is only a product ranking engine for retail products at present, but will expand into other areas at a latter date. It can capture a knowledgeable expert's ranking knowledge, for virtually any retail product, and then make it available for anyone to use at the click of a button. The engine is based on an abstract theory for how the human brain uses neural networks to rank things for us. The engine is capable of ranking pretty much anything the human brain can rank. Like the human brain, it is capable of ranking entities that have absolutely no attributes in common within the ranking criteria (I'm not really sure what that can be used for yet). It can also use any attribute, that the brain uses to rank things, for which we have no formal system of measurements. This is possible through the use of graphs to capture, edit and store the ranking criteria. Essentially, if an entity type has describable attributes, then it can be ranked by this engine. If the user is always willing to accept the highest ranked entity, then it can be used to capture a large number of decision processes which use ranking of a set of options, and which do not make use of the imagination. It can then accurately emulate that decision process. This technology will allow Robotics, AI and Software Agents to make a large number of decisions the way that we do. This theory is part of a wider theory for how the human brain generates most all emotions and feelings, including those for interactions and the Ego, using neural networks. This theory was developed over a period of 17 years. The ranking engine was merely a byproduct of this work. This is no pie in the sky theory, the engine has been fully functional for over two years, and is currently ranking 1225 digital cameras using 89 attributes. It is only the background administration of the web site that needs finishing. I also have an Australian Provisional Patent "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RANKING ENTITIES - AU2016900828" (http://www.ipaustralia.com.au/applicant/wegner-ronald-robert/patents/AU2016900828/). My patent attorney firm, Spruson & Ferguson based in Sydney Australia, would never allow a hoax to tarnish their reputation. If anyone at Mozilla is reading this, please consider keeping the option of Applets! Kind Regards, Robbie Wegner