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Java plugin support discontinued

According to some techinical articles released by Apple, Java update 10 for OSX 10.5 no longer supports the java plugin. As a result, java will no longer work with Firefox or Chrome unless users update to OSX 10.6. Although there may be valid technical reasons for doing this, it is really inexcusable that this was not CLEARLY communicated to users in plain and simple language before the update was uploaded. Here is part of the explanation released on one of Apple's mailing lists (but not the general public):


"Firefox and Chrome users are currently unsupported on PPC since the current versions of those browsers are = Intel-only. Anyone with an Intel Mac should upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard to continue to receive any updates at all.


Plugin2 in it's current state was barely usable when run under J2SE 5.0 anyway, so in the end, anyone who was relying on applets on Leopard was probably already using Safari anyway."


I think it's pretty arrogant that Apple assumes no one using Leopard was using FF or Chrome to browse sites supporting java and to not even bother informing them that support was going to be discontinued.

Just saying....

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jul 3, 2011 8:22 AM

Reply
8 replies

Jul 5, 2011 8:16 PM in response to abusch38

The problem is summarized and a workaround is given in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=668639 (comments 4 and 8):

Quote:


This bug is entirely Apple's fault. For some reason Update 10 removes

the JavaPlugin2_NPAPI.plugin soft link from /Library/Internet

Plugin-Ins/ (and also the ability, in the Java Preferences utility, to

choose whether to run applets "in their own process" or "within the

browser process").


JavaPlugin2_NPAPI.plugin is still present on the system, where the

Java Embedding Plugin can still find it. So Java still works in FF

3.6.18 and earlier. And so this bug is relatively easy for a somewhat

sophisticated user to work around:


Just do the following at a Terminal prompt. For it to work, you'll

need to be logged in using an account with administrator privileges.


$ cd "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/"

$ sudo ln -s /System/Library/Java/Support/Deploy.bundle/Contents/Resources/JavaPlugin2_NPAPI .plugin

Jul 6, 2011 8:29 AM in response to andydmd

So frustrating Apple!! First no Java on iphone or ipad and now this??!! I'm using 10.5.8 and just did my updates yesterday.....bad move!! I run 2 webcam sites which use a java applet to refresh the image and they worked just fine on FF 5 and Chrome before the update. I do not like Safari and have never had a Java problem using other browsers on Leopard before this. Now only Safari will work with Java. I tried the terminal prompt above but all I got was a "command not found" comment in terminal after entering it. Looks like I will have to upgrade to 10.6.

Java plugin support discontinued

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