RIP Java plug-in, the web won’t miss you

28 Jan 2016

The Java plug-in was not only annoying, but made billions of browsers on computers insecure

Oracle is laying to rest the annoying Java plug-in that has been the bane of most browser users’ lives for majority of the history of the internet as we know it. It won’t be missed.

Oracle says it plans to deprecate the Java browser plug-in in JDK 9.

“This technology will be removed from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release.”

Hallelujah! The plug-in was extremely annoying, requiring constant updates, especially in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which has also been consigned to the internet’s graveyard.

Not only that but it was a security headache because it was the key weakness in zero-day programming bugs that threatened billions of computers.

Oracle points out that most browser makers – including Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge – have either removed or announced timelines for the removal of standards-based plug-in support, eliminating the need to embed Flash, Silverlight, Java and other plug-in technologies.

“With modern browser vendors working to restrict and reduce plug-in support in their products, developers of applications that rely on the Java browser plug-in need to consider alternative options such as migrating from Java Applets (which rely on a browser plug-in) to the plug-in-free Java Web Start technology,” Oracle said.

Java image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com