When we launched the app, we were put off by an uninviting Mac OS 9-style interface, and performance did indeed suffer from having to be passed through the JVM software interpreter. The first thing that gave us pause is the application's file type, a Java Archive, meaning that running it requires a working installation of a Java Virtual Machine. Installation consists of downloading the ZIP file and extracting the software to the location of your choice. As a full-featured painting program, Helios Paint for Mac includes all the tools you'd expect, but suffers from an unattractive, non-intuitive interface and performance issues.