And Keepvid for me :
The bad thing is, that people often don’t understand that Java is still a fine programming language and summarize such accidents to “Java is bad”.
Its quite sad, this is like how many people are terrified of dying in a plane crash when you’re over 1,000 times more likely to die in a car accident, because car Accidents never make the news but plane crashes do.
People aren’t afraid of dying instantly in plane crashes - they are afraid of 4 minutes of utter terror waiting to die. Car crashes happen so fast you often don’t know you’re going to have one until the screech of rubber.
Cas
Also mostly in car you’re the driver, on plane you bid your life to others’ exp and luck.
Or just use NoScript. (I don’t think the analogy really fits.) For everyone else, click to start is good enough. I wish they did that with Flash. It would have spared people from a lot of viruses and full-volume, near-full-screen, flashing advertisements.
Java 7.11 now blocked. This is getting needlessly tedious.
Edit: Since OSX Java isn’t an apple product any more, should they really be blocking it. Surely this should be Oracle’s call. As thinks stand, apple are breaking various business apps without notice. I gather the SAP client for OSX uses an applet. There’s also the usual complaints regarding online banking applets. It makes me wonder if they would block any app they don’t like in further, effectively extending the app store walled garden approach. Will Flash be next?
Not that Oracle is blameless either. The latest update doesn’t work well with standalone installs of JavaFx 2 (on the PC), and apparently sometimes removes the entire Java 6 installation.
[quote=“princec,post:11,topic:40685”]
Most public services in Denmark use applets to sign in, for security. Banks, taxes, educational institutions, public transport, drivers licenses and passports.
Well, maybe they could spend some of their billions and create their own custom, secure plugins based on OpenJDK 7, then.
Cas
@princec Bank security is actually pretty terrible. When it is the banks fault, they often put money back in the effected individuals’ accounts without telling them the were a victim of hacking or social engineering. They prefer to keep customers in the dark because replacing the damages is more profitable than preventing them.
@Mads They should open source the software so that people do not need to run it in a browser.
@ Alan_W But Apple is so secure! Why would a computer with the same security mechanisms (or worse) of Windows and Linux and featuring such stylish rounded corners ever have to worry about malware?
I think a browser distributor has the “right” to choose not to load third party software; assuming the benevolence of the distributor. Web browser distributors do have agendas, though, and since Apple bundles it’s web browser with its operating system there is even more reason to distrust their choices. Ideally they would temporarily disable something without breaking its functionality and explaining the situation in an unbiased and informative way.
New java release now available Version 7 Update 13 (build 1.7.0_13-b20).
Now if Apple and Oracle could get together and have updates released before blocking the old version everything would be peachy.
If Oracle had the patch ready before there was a need to block the plug-in, there wouldn’t have been ab exploit in the first place.
That’s hilarious; I hadn’t seen that graphic before.
I plead " not guilty", though’ your honor.
The splash call-out at the top of the graphic says “… points to what is clearly obvious to everyone else”.
Judging from comments here and elsewhere on the web, the situation isn’t obvious to quite a few people.
Following your reasoning: they shouldn’t have had the security issues in the first place.
Well now, that would have been ideal, obviously, but that wasn’t my point.
Alan_w had said “Now if Apple and Oracle could get together and have updates released before blocking the old version everything would be peachy.”, and I was simply pointing out that his wish was nonsensical.
As much as it pains me to see Java with yet another black eye, Apple was right to block applets by default until Oracle could get their act together (assuming they have this time).
I’m quite fed up with java right now. I just downloaded and installed java7u13 from java.com because my java auto-updater didn’t, even though I can see it running in my task manager, and then I found that my browser has the Ask toolbar installed. What the hell! I never asked for it (no pun intended) so there must have been an opt-out checkbox that i overlooked in the installation process.
So annoying. I can’t beleive that Oracle installs that crap with the java plugin, it reaks of amateurism. None of the other plugins like adobe’s flash or pdf viewer do that.
Disappointing >:(
EDIT: And to uninstall the Ask toolbar, you have to go to the control panel to do it, as well as close the browser and restart the computer! Geez
http://www.java.com/en/img/download/ask_toolbar2.jpg
Whenever I install ANYTHING these days I carefully read every page. Things like DVDSoft have like 10 hidden programs D:
But yeah, very ugly for an official java runtime download.
“We recommend installing the FREE Browser Addon…” oh yeah well I recommend to shove this FREE pineapple in your ass D:
Yep, it definitely makes Oracle look like a pretty low-rent operation. Of course I should mention that Windows is the only platform with this problem.
Oh, and the Ask toolbar deliberately waits 10 minutes before it begins to install itself, so you’re unable to remove it immediately if you accidentally clicked. I’m going to recommend to my employer that we treat it as malware.