Web Start a Java App

I thought “web start” was dead a long time ago. Google says it was officially removed in Java 11. It’s not a great idea in the modern age, I guess. There are problems I see with the web start approach in the modern day: * it already requires that the user has the right Java installed * it puts up a big “THIS IS A JAVA APPLICATION” flag which will paint a target on you right away * it can be a little clunky to start the app (as you’ve seen) and that clunkiness will be a bit different on every platform. (Maybe it’s gotten better… that was my experience with it 15 years ago.) I think most Java games now will distribute with their own JRE built in and try to look as much like a native application as possible. Most of the people who are going to instantly hate a “java application” before even trying it are also not going to be tech savvy enough to know it’s a Java app.