Hello,
Is there a best practice for avoiding a browser freeze when loading an applet?
For my precise needs, the applet needs to be loaded when the web application is initialized, and is not a visual component (will be in a hidden div or hidden iframe).
As a reference, here is an old bug on SUN's side.
Essentially, no there is not. Read the evaluation section of the bug you linked to. The issue is one of startup time for the JVM. About the best you can do is to keep the applet small so that it will load quickly. However, the browser freeze is happening because the browser has to wait for the VM to start. You can't ever drop that time to 0, so a short freeze is unavoidable.
1.6.0u10 will help greatly with most browsers, but with the older vms there is no way to avoid the browser freeze.