Java Plugin in Browsers

Hello,

I have been trying to find out the answer for this question for some time now but to no avail. So I'm posting it here. Our browsers require us to download java plug ins to display certain contents.
So I allowed it to download the latest JRE. Well and good, but why do browsers need JRE (JVM,since JVM can't be without JRE) in the first place? I do understand that there are websites which uses Java applets for displaying content and so require JRE. But most of the applet type of contents have been replaced by flash in the internet. So other than applets is there anything that require JRE to be installed for us to view the website? Servers use Java but when the response is sent its going to be HTML, so why do we need java in our browser other than running applets?

I have given a link http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp , it is used to verify our version of JRE. When I first visited this site, my browser required me to run the java plug in. So I accepted it and the content was displayed. But when I view the source of this page there are no references to 'applets' in the HTML page, so I believe there must be something other than applets that uses java, what are those 'somethings'?

Hope I have laid out the question clearly !

Anand Athinarayanan wrote:Hello,
...
I have given a link http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp , it is used to verify our version of JRE. When I first visited this site, my browser required me to run the java plug in. So I accepted it and the content was displayed. But when I view the source of this page there are no references to 'applets' in the HTML page, so I believe there must be something other than applets that uses java, what are those 'somethings'?

Hope I have laid out the question clearly !

The "Verify Java Version" button doesn't run an applet, instead it sends the request to the server: /en/download/installed.jsp?detect=jre&try=1 and then returns the OS version, JRE version as the query params - /en/download/installed.jsp?jre_version=1.7.0-ea&vendor=Oracle+Corporation&os=Windows+7&os_version=6.1

Hello Mohammed,

The "Verify Java Version" button doesn't run an applet

Yes that is precisely what I'm saying. It doesn't refer an applet, then why is the website asking me to run the java plug in if its just a http request?
My question is, other than applets what are the cases where we need to have java (JRE)installed in our machine to view the contents of a website.

Anand Athinarayanan wrote:Hello Mohammed,

The "Verify Java Version" button doesn't run an applet

Yes that is precisely what I'm saying. It doesn't refer an applet, then why is the website asking me to run the java plug in if its just a http request?

Does it ask to run a Java plugin? I dont think so. And I suppose you are referring to this page- http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

Anand Athinarayanan wrote:
My question is, other than applets what are the cases where we need to have java (JRE)installed in our machine to view the contents of a website.

I dont know of any usecases apart from Applet where browsers require the JRE.

Anand Athinarayanan wrote:But when I view the source of this page there are no references to 'applets' in the HTML page, so I believe there must be something other than applets that uses java, what are those 'somethings'?

Yes, that page does run an applet. If you examine the page source, you'll see that it loads the http://www.java.com/js/deployJava.js script, which causes an applet tag to be written to the page source. That script is actually the recommended way of running applets these days; see http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/deploymentInDepth/runAppletFunction.html and http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/deploymentInDepth/jreVersionCheck.html for details.

Mohammed and Tim,

Thank you so much ! I'm marking this thread as solved.