First, I must confess that I know virtually NOTHING about Java ...
except how to spell it!

I mainly use Firefox (2.0.0.2) for internet browsing. I frequently
visit a NOAA site to check the weather ... and when I used to go to
the page to display a loop of the local radar (which the site says
requires "Java version 1.4.2 or higher"), it worked fine. Over the
last 6 months or so, it's gotten where it appears to be loading the
Java applet, but it never finishes ... and I never get to view the
loop. Now I don't even see the Java icon in the system tray like I
used to!

Another issue has come up over the last 6 months or so ... my scans
with Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy seem to take "forever". So
I went looking for a reason ... and found that there are over 200,000
files taking up over 1.3GB of space in the following folder:

I:\Documents and Settings\John\Application Data\Sun\Java\Deployment
\cache\

When I go into the Control Panel to Java ... and click on Settings
under Temporary Internet Files ... and change the "Amount of disk
space to use" to a maximum of 100MB ... and also click on Delete
Files ... neither seems to have ANY effect on the files in that
folder. All 1.3GB of files remain!

A couple of questions:

Can I safely delete all the files in that Cache folder manually? If
not ... how would I do it?

Would the huge size of that folder have anything to do with my
inability to view the radar loop at the NOAA site? If not, any idea
why it no longer works like it used to?

Thanks in advance for any advice, recommendations, etc.!!