Tech Alert: Update Java NOW

[theodosia]

This definitely needs a boost, so here:

Originally posted by lolmac at Tech Alert: Update Java NOW
How recently did you install an update to Java?

If your answer is "Last week" or "Last month" or "Huh?  What's that?" or, in fact, anything other than "Yesterday" or "Today", go thou and update.  Now.  Then come back here and I'll tell you why, but seriously,

Comments

[ron_newman]

Looks like I'm safe for now. My Mac has such an old Intel CPU that it still runs Snow Leopard and cannot be upgraded to Lion or Mountain Lion. Therefore, it can't run any 64-bit software such as Java 7. It will have Java 6 forever.

[bethbethbeth]

So I - semi-Luddite that I am - go to figure out how I can check whether I'm running Java or not (and in the process, learn exactly where my plugs in live *g*), only to discover that Good Old Firefox had taken it upon itself to disable my old version of Java at some point in the past and replaced it with nothing, which...clearly not having Java isn't getting in the way of my day-to-day computer browsing. So that's good.

But thanks for the heads up (which...I'll be using when I get to work this coming week)

[lolmac]

(Hi, I'm also Beth, and I wrote the post. Hi, Beth*3!))

Just for the record, there are multiple Java plug-ins. At a wild guess, the one that Firefox disabled was probably the Java Console -- I encourage you to check again and see if you have others. Specifically, look for Java Platform and Java Deployment Toolkit.

And thanks for the signal boost!

[bethbethbeth]

Hi Other!Beth.

I checked everything, and java isn't running anywhere on my computer, but thanks!

(so...what common things does java usually run? )

[ron_newman]

To make sure it's gone, type

java -version

in your Terminal window. If it says

java: command not found

then you really don't have it anywhere.

[llennhoff]

If you have Java 6, you may not need to upgrade to Java 7. In fact, my company's product includes an applet which is not yet Java 7 compatible, so we require our customer's users to have Java 6 on their desktops. We're working on a Java 7 compatible version.

[lolmac]

I just found out that Oracle also released a patched version of Java 6 -- that may be the best solution. It's Version 6 Update 35.

[ron_newman]

Where do you get that? I don't see it mentioned on the http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp page.

[lolmac]

Here: http://www.java.com/en/download/manual_v6.jsp

(Hopefully, this comment will not be blocked by LJ's antispam filters.)

[arliss]

Wow, done, and thanks for this!

[psyfic]

Just dropping in to wish you a Happy Birthday and hopes for a good year ahead.