Browser plugins have long been a source of headaches for IT security, often requiring monthly — and quite often emergency — patches to plug the security holes in them. With the demise of Adobe Flash on the way, Oracle has announced via a very short blog post that come JDK 9 later this year, the Java browser plugin will be deprecated.
With modern browser vendors working to restrict and reduce plugin support in their products, developers of applications that rely on the Java browser plugin need to consider alternative options such as migrating from Java Applets (which rely on a browser plugin) to the plugin-free Java Web Start technology.
Oracle plans to deprecate the Java browser plugin in JDK 9. This technology will be removed from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release.
Google and Microsoft have already taken steps to remove support for plugins like Java from their Chrome and Edge (respectively) browsers, and Mozilla has also announced plans to remove support for Java and Silverlight by the end of the year. As Oracle mentions above, Java isn’t going away any time soon, but web developers and businesses who rely on the app-like functionality in their browsers based on the Java applet will have to update their apps to use a different platform or Oracle’s new Java Web Start technology.
It will be interesting to see how long support continues after the Java browser plugin is deprecated in JDK 9, most businesses aren’t quick to update their web apps and it will definitely be a big job for some companies.
What do you think about Oracle’s decision to deprecate the Java browser plugin? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/entry/moving_to_a_plugin_free” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Oracle[/button]
