Web Browsers and Java

article #1044, updated 2508 days ago

As of this writing (2017-05-16), the situation is in flux. Items:

  • The historical closed-source uberstandard for both Java virtual machine and plugin, this being Oracle (originally Sun), is supporting plugins for its current version, 8, but has announced a ceasing of plugin support for 9.
  • The open-source plugin standard, IcedTea, shows no signs of weakening, and works very well indeed with both Oracle’s Java and the open-source OpenJVM and others as well. However, no Windows porting is known to this author.
  • Firefox and Chrome do not support Java in their current versions. There is an Extended Support Release version of Firefox which does, for a little while longer.
  • Pale Moon, a very distinctive Mozilla/Firefox variant, is reported to support Java.
  • Opera is reported to support the Oracle/Sun JVM only.
  • Midori is reported to support both Oracle’s and IcedTea.

The author is working on practical tests of the last three.

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