Oracle’s Java Plugin Finally Bites The Dust

Oracle is finally hammering the last nail in Java plugin’s coffin. The web browser plugin has been around for a couple of decades now, it enabled developers to bring app-like functionality to web browsers, but the technology is outdated and isn’t really needed anymore. It has proven to be more of a headache recently due to security flaws and malware concerns. The company has confirmed that it’s going to remove this technology from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release.

It’s about time that Oracle made this decision, it’s not like there are many major web browsers left that still support the plugin. Microsoft’s Edge browser and Google’s Chrome have both discontinued support for Java applets. Currently, only Safari and Internet Explorer are the two remaining major web browsers with support for Java applications.

Mozilla is going to follow suit as well. It has already confirmed that it’s going to remove support for plugins like Java and Silverlight in Firefox by the end of this year. Oracle has seen the writing on the wall and decided to deprecate the Java browser plugin in JDK 9.

This also serves as a warning to businesses or developers still relying on Java browser plugins because even if they will continue to work in the short term, the fact that almost all browsers will be plugging the plug anyway and that Oracle itself has decided to do this, so they need to pay heed to this warning and update their online presence.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: java, oracle