DHS advises computer users to disable Java because of security bug

[Eusis]

Washington Post story here.

Java has instructions on how if you want to take this advice. You may need to update before the option to disable it for browsers is there if you don't just uninstall it entirely.

EDIT:

Quick PSA - Java and JavaScript are not the same thing, in fact they aren't even related anymore. The only thing they have in common is the letters.

[Akanbe-]

People shouldn't have java on their computer or web browser, period.  Some programs might need it, but I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle.  I see "zero-day Java exploit" articles far, far too often.

[Eusis]

Annoying thing is it IS essential for a lot, some sites depend on, but when you have the DHS themselves going "shut it down"... :/

[Aeolus]

Oh hey! Its that thing that is the reason why I still stick with Firefox. All I need to do is go to tools/options then uncheck the check box next to Enable Javascript. 3-5 seconds and I'm done.

But unfortunately, Youtube is functionally useless without Java or Javascript on, among other things.

[dyeager]

Quick PSA - Java and JavaScript are not the same thing, in fact they aren't even related anymore. The only thing they have in common is the letters.

[Eusis]

Quick PSA - Java and JavaScript are not the same thing, in fact they aren't even related anymore. The only thing they have in common is the letters.

Noted, and added to the OP.

[Kevadu]

Quick PSA - Java and JavaScript are not the same thing, in fact they aren't even related anymore. The only thing they have in common is the letters.

Anymore?  They were never related.  Javascript was originally called Livescript when it was developed by Netscape and was really only renamed to feed off of the hype Java was getting around that time.  Some naming conventions were copied from Java, but otherwise the two languages don't have a thing in common.

[dyeager]

Quick PSA - Java and JavaScript are not the same thing, in fact they aren't even related anymore. The only thing they have in common is the letters.

Anymore?  They were never related.  Javascript was originally called Livescript when it was developed by Netscape and was really only renamed to feed off of the hype Java was getting around that time.  Some naming conventions were copied from Java, but otherwise the two languages don't have a thing in common.

The LANGUAGES have never had anything in common - but it was originally conceived as a portable version of Sun Microsystem's Java. Hence why I said "anymore" - probably dated myself as the old man I am with that though, essentially your point is correct. The similarities really did end there.

[dyeager]

Quick PSA - Java and JavaScript are not the same thing, in fact they aren't even related anymore. The only thing they have in common is the letters.

Noted, and added to the OP.

Excellent - the link you provided is exactly what you want to do if concerned about this.

[Alisha]

Oh hey! Its that thing that is the reason why I still stick with Firefox. All I need to do is go to tools/options then uncheck the check box next to Enable Javascript. 3-5 seconds and I'm done.

But unfortunately, Youtube is functionally useless without Java or Javascript on, among other things.

couldnt you just use the html 5.0 version of youtube? not that it matters to me i mostly use the youtube vita app.

[Kevadu]

The LANGUAGES have never had anything in common - but it was originally conceived as a portable version of Sun Microsystem's Java. Hence why I said "anymore" - probably dated myself as the old man I am with that though, essentially your point is correct. The similarities really did end there.

That's not true, though.  Javascript was not conceived as a portable version of Java, it began as a totally unrelated project within Netscape and then some 'brilliant' marketeers who were pushing for the whole browser-as-a-platform thing (which was later reinvigorated by Google, guess some ideas never die...) thought it would make a nice complement to Java.  The plan was that Java would be for the big apps--essentially a C/C++ replacement--while Javascript would be the scripting language of choice, essentially filling in the niche of VBscript.  It's not a Java-based scripting language, but rather the scripting language to complement Java.

So basically they took an unrelated scripting language and then renamed it as part of a grand plan that never got off the ground.  The scripting language was actually useful on its own, though, so we're still using it.  But the name stuck, even though it's pretty meaningless outside of the history lesson.

We're really getting off topic, though...

Oh hey! Its that thing that is the reason why I still stick with Firefox. All I need to do is go to tools/options then uncheck the check box next to Enable Javascript. 3-5 seconds and I'm done.

But unfortunately, Youtube is functionally useless without Java or Javascript on, among other things.

couldnt you just use the html 5.0 version of youtube? not that it matters to me i mostly use the youtube vita app.

Hrm?  Youtube uses flash, not Java.  I don't think there's a bit of Java on the site...

[dyeager]

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2001/04/06/js_history.html

I think we mostly agree. Marketing is why it is called JavaScript, which is your point. My point is simply that the Java boom was the impetus for it existing in the first place.

[MeshGearFox]

I thought Javascript was an ecmascript dialect that was given a similar look/feel to Java in terms of function names, but is otherwise closer to a lisp and smalltalk in how it functions?

Also wasn't Actionscript previously an ecmascript variant?

Also Java is a programming language. You don't have Java on your machine. You have programs written in Java. You have a Java... fuck, virtual machine/runtime/whatever.

Java and C# which is as far as I care a dialect of Java with some of the retard taken out are pretty widespread, industry standard languages. Lots of software is written in them. They function well for the kind of software that IS written in them. This isn't just an issue with web content being written in Java. A lot of desktop applications are written in Java, including Minecraft, which sort of sold massively.

And, yeah, whether you like it or not, you do need more robust programming languages to get more interesting multimedia content into webpages. Java isn't somehow more issue-prone than Flash or HTML5.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-usa-java-securitybre90b0ex-20130112,0,5437237.story This article explains it better. It's attacked a lot because it's widely used. All software has security holes. You can break anything if you try hard enough.

Also it sounds like hackers are exploiting security flaws in the webpages themselves, and not just Java.

Best quote from the news article's comments:

"Maybe we should have stuck with Visual Basic -- remember all of the Java-related lawsuits against Microsoft?"

People don't use Visual Basic because it's shitty and it's outright not at all efficient enough for anything that has to be high performance. It's also got more security issues than Java afaik, but nobody targets them because nothing written in VB is likely to be useful enough to bother hacking.

I know this because I test software that's written in VB.NET and it breaks in the most deliciously beautiful ways.

Seriously though, let people hack my laptop. They'll just find a bunch of Steam games, my Carnage Hearts isos (shit's antique and the actual discs go into storage, yo), and a whole lot of furry porn.