I honestly don't understand why it is so hard for people to keep critical programs like this up to date, maybe they need to play one less game each week and spend that time updating the basics like Java, Adobe Flash, Reader, and a few others ....How long does it take half an hour ???

All you need to do is click on the Java icon and choose update!

Actually Java Console is default set up to offer an update automatically.

I think the biggest issue is when these programs flag you with an update notice people don't take the few minutes to complete it. Silly, and costly many times.

I keep all of those up to date as well as everything else... yet I was still able to be targeted with a Trojan Backdoor.Bot out of the blue. Sometimes, this stuff just happens... outdated engines or not. In fact, I find I get hit with at least one piece of malware each and every year around this time, no matter what.

I would like to skip the rhetoric one finds with a Google search and get a real answer from the people here. What exactly is Java, does one really need it, and what are the pros/cons for a moderate computer user like myself to download it. Thank you kindly. Rusty

Java allows you to play online games, chat with people around the world, calculate your mortgage interest, and view images in 3D, just to name a few. It's also integral to the intranet applications and other e-business solutions that are the foundation of corporate computing


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What is Java?

no rhetoric...most banks, credit card companies and many others use JAVA programming language--it would be difficult to use the internet without it.

Microsoft used to have its own Java VM (which wasn't quite the same as Sun's Java) long ago...I think it went out with IE6, not sure.

IE8/IE9 has no Java.

FWIW, a lot of online games etc. work just fine with Flash. Java isn't nearly as essential to browsing as they'd like people to think it is - I have it on my laptop only for a specific (non-browser) Java application which requires the runtime.

Thanks very much for the input, folks. I seem to be doing just fine w/out Java so I think I'll just stay the course.

This is why I use noscript with firefox. I only allow what I need and nothing else.