Apple Ditches Java Due To Security Concerns
Online security certainly seems to be the talk of the town. Apple recently announced that it is going to remove the older version of Java, offered by Oracle Corp, from the Mac internet browsers. This move gets executed when the customers upgrade their existing operating systems to the latest version of the Mac OS. This move has supposedly been triggered by widespread security concerns that experts raised on one of most widely used programming languages.
There was no reaction to this from Oracle, which was expected as Oracle had admitted to the security flaws a few weeks ago. The IT giant had also released their latest updates to help cover those security flaws. You might want to discuss those flaws in detail in your Java training classes. It will help you in designing applications that are more secure.
Support to Be Downloaded Directly From Oracle Site
The latest version of support for Java has to be downloaded directly from the Oracle site, if the users are planning to uninstall it on their own. There is a section in the support page of the Apple site that provides an applet to do this for you. That applet will uninstall the existing Java support, which was provided by Apple. It will then reboot your computer and install the latest version from Oracle site. A couple of years ago, Apple and Oracle had jointly announced that Apple is going to stop providing Java support for Mac users and they would let Oracle do it. But the transition date was not specified and it seems that now is the time to make that transition.
Use Java on an As-Needed Basis
Online security experts have cautioned users of Apple computers running on the Mac operating system to be extremely careful while using Java. In fact, they have clearly mentioned that you should enable Java only when it is needed and disable it at all other times. Although the warning bells about Java have been sounding from the past few months, security experts in Europe have confirmed that they found flaws as late as August. This has prevented Apple from letting its users stick to the Java support that they provide.
Oracle Working On the Latest Version of Java
Meanwhile there have been rumors that Oracle is working on the latest version of Java that is not only secure but is also way more efficient than what the language is today. Although there has not been any official word on it, we are pretty sure that Oracle is going to announce the release very soon.
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Josephine says
Well I am not sure if this is a good thing or not I hope that the security that they have chosen will be just as good at least. I am familiar with they way it is now and knowing that it will change is not a comforting thought. Thank you for posting this though and letting us know before it was just done without warning. Great blog by the way keep it up.
Katherine says
Well it definitely sounds like the people that run Java have this on their radar to improve and I hope that they will complete it soon because the more people that set there and enable and disable Java back and forth all the time will allow that one split second to let someone in that is trying to plant a virus or hack your identity.
Steve says
I guess this is sort of like a divorce of sorts. Well, this sort of thing happens every time a programming language becomes very popular. That is when the malicious hackers decide to target that platform – in order to hit the masses. This happened with Interne Explorer, Windows 7 and 8. I still use Windows XP because I get less attacks since most people have upgraded from XP Pro.
Thomas says
I guess the programmers dropped the ball for Java Sun Microsystems. That is very surprising to hear because Sun Microsystems has this God like conception with the masses of users which mostly consist of business persons and not hard core coders. Nevertheless, I would say it is a big blow to the once all – might Java platform. Is nothing sacred anymore?