You will now notice when you click play you will have 2 options, play as browser (as before), and to download the Windows executable.

The browser support for applets has long been deprecated, and it will only get worse.

Note that you only need to download it once and it will work to connect to the game server. You will be prompted to download a new version if a new version comes out.

Also you can run and practice play on the new application offline, without connecting to the server, for completely free.

Please let me know of any problems, feedback for the executable.

yep done it and it works fine,