Chat applet closes browser!!

Question

I'm programming a chat applet using MulticastSockets
the connect button does something like this:
dest = new InetSocketAddress("228.5.6.7",4321);
try{
socket = new MulticastSocket(4321);
NetworkInterface netif = NetworkInterface.getByInetAddress(InetAddress.getLocalHost());
socket.joinGroup(dest, netif);
InetAddress address = InetAddress.getByName("228.5.6.7");
socket.joinGroup(address);
I also have a signed jar file so the client gives rights to the applet (so it can open the sockets)
It works on win2k and winXP but on win98 when the client clicks the connect button the browser closes itself. I don't know what kind of error could produce this.
Any ideas??

Answer 1

In response to the original: Have you tried updated browsers on the 98 machine?
In response to everthing else:
If you were developing a chat application using php and javascript, I could understand using the http protocol, but if you're using an applet, why not just connect with a socket? And, for that matter, it seems fairly simple to make it peer-to-peer and just connect to whoever you want to send to.(just keep a hash of names and ip's)
The conversation is interesting though since I've thought about the feasability of creating a php/javascript client to jabber. As far as keeping the http connection open and polling, seems like you could specify some send rate from the server side(1 packet every other second isn't the end of the world) and re-poll whenever the client hasn't received a packet for a straight 3 seconds, or something like that...
The problem with php and javascript is that they really have funny threading and time limits(some that are server invoked), but I suppose this can be circumvented. There are loopholes.