Java plugins face end as Oracle joins Chrome, Microsoft killing it off

The plugin that slows down your browser and turns it into a giant security risk will be killed off.

The Java plugin that slows down your browser and turns it into a giant security risk will be killed off.

Developer Oracle in a blog post said it would end providing the Java plugin following the decision of developers of browsers such as Chrome and Microsoft Edge to cease support for a plugin interface known as NPAPI, developed originally for Netscape back in 1995.

For everyday users this might sound techno mumbo-jumbo.

But most of us have experienced excruciating slow browser performance or a browser freezing altogether, often due to a poorly performing plugin code.

In the earlier days, the Java Browser Plugin gave programmers the ability to add little bits of extra functionality to a web page. A web page could play a video, look up data files or present interactive content on websites.

But a lot of this is now achieved in other ways. We’ve also seen the rise of HTML 5, a coding language for websites that offers so much advanced functionality and is still under development.

The Java browser plugin is not the only software affected. Support for embedded Flash and Silverlight in web pages also will end.

“By late 2015, many browser vendors have either removed or announced timelines for the removal of standards based plugin support, eliminating the ability to embed Flash, Silverlight, Java and other plugin based technologies,” Oracle said in a blogpost

Oracle said it would wind down support for the Java browser plugin with version 9 of its Java Development Kit and remove it from future Java releases.

The Java plugin has been with us since 1995 and was originally developed for the browser Netscape, more than a decade before the days of Google Chrome and 9 years before Mozilla Firefox.

It provides a connection to the Java platform so that applets (tiny programs) can run inside a browser.

While the move affects only one general type of plugin, it signals that plugins generally are on death row with developers preferring to offer a more pristine browsing experience.

A downside is that some web-based programs still rely on Java plugins and users can expect empty space where a Java plugin isn’t operating.

Another reason for the plugin demise is that they are not supported in browsers on mobile devices, something which Oracle referred to in a short white paper accompanying its blog.

“The rise of web usage on mobile device browsers, typically without support for plugins, increasingly led browser makers to want to restrict and remove standards based plugin support from their products, as they tried to unify the set of features available across desktop and mobile versions.”

Supporting Java in browsers is only possible for as long as browser vendors are committed to supporting standards based plugins.”

But the bigger issue is security. There are claims that in 2013, Java was responsible for 91 per cent of computer desktop compromises. Part of the problem is that users across the globe have out-of-date versions that can be exploited by hackers.

That’s understandable, as keeping browser plugins up-to-date is tedious, especially when all you want to do is surf the net or access a program.