Java installed on fewer and fewer machines??

[Archibald]

Take a look here:
stats
It seems that compared to year 2008 there are definitely more machines with no Java support... Counterintuitive. Any clues how to interpret this and the possible cause (note that this site does not include data from mobiles http://www.statowl.com/about_our_data.php )?

[princec]

Welllll... who cares? The only people that this affects are those writing applets and frankly, those writing applets are wrong 

Cas

[cheekymonk3y]

From 81% in September 2008 to 75% in January 2012. It's not a minuscule fall or anything but Java still has heavy penetration and it will be a long time before that changes.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[gimbal]

probably will go up again when Oracle releases the Mac version of both the runtime and JavaFX 2 later this year. That will unify Java across the three major platforms, which I think will help a lot for its renewed acceptance. Java has been in limbo for a long time, of course that moves people away from the platform.

Probably will even go up further once JavaFX is rolled out for mobile platforms, which is in the pipeline (but not until next year / not until JavaFX 3 is released) I have heard from official sources...

[Damocles]

I think its just a sign of people using alternatives to the PC.

The smartphones take over a lot of the gaming opportunities. Where its more convinient to pull an app and run it, than buying a game in the shop and installing
it manually + bothering with configs and drivers.
This convenience also leads to more people not bothering to install VMs like Java on their machine. They demand for stuff to just run out of the box.

On a daily basis, interactive webcontent is usually presented in flash, why bothering to install Java or silverlight, etc...

More important I think is the question: how many potential customers (eg gamers) have or are willing to install Java.

[ReBirth]

Welllll... who cares? The only people that this affects are those writing applets and frankly, those writing applets are wrong 

Cas

you're promoting your way of life right? 

[princec]

Heh No the whole internet is moving to this: the end of browser plugins and the ascendency of pure HTML5 and the thrice-damned Javascript as the view most people will henceforth have on to the internet. I wouldn't fight the tide. Quite apart from that but browser plugins are a wretched security hole that provides almost no gain for vast amounts of potential pain. Good riddance.

For the rest of us, the vast increases in bandwidth that have come about in the last 10 years means downloading a JRE embedded in an application that needs it is now an irrelevance. It's loads better in fact, because it means an end to configuration woes in that respect.

Cas

[appel]

Percentages are misleading.

I'm pretty sure there are a lot more machines that have Java today compared to in 2008.

The pie is bigger, but the slice is smaller percentage wise, but it's still more pie... yummy...

And there are a lot more devices out there than don't run Java roaming the world wide web, which skews the result, because we're mainly interested in desktop computers?

[tberthel]

Lots of apps that need a jvm come with one and it is not detected as a plugin.

Sadly, Applets really are going away.

[Archibald]

And there are a lot more devices out there than don't run Java roaming the world wide web, which skews the result, because we're mainly interested in desktop computers?

I thought basicly all mobiles support Java by default and that the ease of mobiles development was one of the strongest advantages of Java?

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[princec]

You heard wrongly Java has never been particularly geared towards making mobile application development easy. It was sold on the basis that you could use the same toolchains to develop the software, not that the software might necessarily run properly everywhere it went...

Cas

[sproingie]

"Write Once, With Portability In Mind, and it Becomes Easier Than With Any Comparable Runtime to Run Anywhere With Minimal Adjustment Needed".  Yeah, doesn't work as well slogan-wise.

[gouessej]

I agree with appel and I learned today that Adobe is going to stop supporting Flash on GNU Linux 

[kappa]

I agree with appel and I learned today that Adobe is going to stop supporting Flash on GNU Linux  

They haven't dropped support for Linux (despite the sensationalist news headlines on some websites), they've just decided to drop support for the old and rather ancient NPAPI (Netscape!!! Plugin Application Programming Interface). They've instead decided to move to the better Pepper API (PPAPI).

"a set of modifications to NPAPI to make plugins more portable and more secure". The modifications are designed specifically to ease the implementation of out-of-process plugin execution. Further, the goals of the project are to provide a framework for making plugins fully cross-platform

Although not supported by Firefox, Opera and Safari atm (IE's mostly always had its own weird thing), its an open standard that can easily be implemented if so desired. If a major plugin like Flash makes this move maybe other browsers will think about supporting it otherwise you'll end up with a chicken and egg situation and we could be stuck with NPAPI for a long long time.

In the long run its a superior choice over NPAPI and much securer (plugin's are a major security hole). Its something the Java Plugin should consider too. However the biggest win (especially for a company like Adobe who doesn't have unlimited resources for every platform) is once you write the plugin for one platform its much easier to port between others, so in the long run it can be better for Linux which has been neglected by plugin makers for years (especially Adobe).

[antelopeDJ]

As I've read above, the new release of the Java runtime for Mac should boost that a bit. Also: Java has been prominent for decades, and millions still play Java-based games like Runescape and others.

[princec]

Er, millions?

Cas

[R.D.]

Don't care... ship your own JVM with the final product -> rest assure stuff is working like you want Also does this include all the android devices? Heck there are tons of them :/