IcedTea's plugin is worthless. It doesn't deal with signed applets.

The only two things I use java for with a web browser are two different types of network kvm. One uses a java applet, and the other uses a java webstart application. I had to use 32bit sun java to get support for both at once.

Now the only thing left 32bit is mplayer for win32 codecs. I will have to do much testing and see if I can now live without them and use mplayer.x86_64. If so I can pretty much go pure 64bit. I do run into x86_64 applications every so often that don't behave properly. The last example I can think of is rtorrent.

It includes a plugin and javaws support. The two major things sun java 64bit has been lacking for years. It is still lacking the rim.cgi, but I have never had a need for it.

The plugin needs some polish. It doesn't properly declare it's version. Which makes a kvm application I use fail, because it tries to check the version.