McRip System Files is a free portable offline installer for Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, DirectX Redistributable, Shockwave Player and Java. Offline means that the program contains all installers for offline installation. In other words, an Internet connection is not required during installation of the technologies.

The downside is the size of the installer, which is currently weighing in at 192 Megabytes. This can be an issue, especially for users who do not need all of the applications but only some of them.

Just start the installer to install one, multiple or all of the programs on a target system.

Checkboxes allow you to make selections prior to installation. Please note that 32-bit and 64-bit installation files are available. It should also be noted that the developers have added the latest Flash beta version to the program and not the latest stable version of Adobe’s software.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 users need to run the program with elevated privileges. All selected applications will be installed silently on the system and with automatic updates disabled. Users who want automatic updating enabled need to configure the programs accordingly.

System Files can be a useful program for users who need offline installers for multiple of the included programs. Silent installation of all programs and disabled auto updates may be interesting as well.

Windows users can download the program from Softpedia. The developer website is available here.

All tools have in common that they can be used to download public photos that are hosted on Flickr. They differ in handling and features though.

The latest addition is Flickr Photo Downloader, a lightweight easy to use Java application. Everything is configured in the main application interface. Here you can enter the Flickr user account name that you want photos downloaded from.

The download directory is automatically adjusted by the downloader. That’s handy for users who do not want to configure the download location manually, but it is possible for users who want to change it manually to another location on the computer.

The remaining settings are for the photo size, which can be small, medium or large, and the number of pages that should be downloaded by the software.

A click on the download button initiates the process. The download speed depends on the network bandwidth. One issue here is that the program is not displaying a progress bar or indicator. That’s usually not a problem for smaller sized downloads but could be problematic for larger downloads as it is not clear when the downloads will finish. You could look into the download directory to see if there is progress, but that is the only way.

Flickr Photo Downloader displays a message at the end that all photo downloads have been completed.

The program saves the photos by default into the user directory. The dialog has an option to open the folder containing the newly downloaded photos directly. Users who have to use a proxy to connect to the Internet can configure one under the Settings menu link.

The program seems to block downloads if the page count goes out of bounds. Flickr Photo Downloader is a small handy software to download photos from Flickr. It is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system and available at the project’s Google Code homepage. (via)

Java users can verify their computer system’s Java version on this page. Affected by the security vulnerabilities are all JDK and JRE 7, and JDK and JRE Update 27 and earlier versions.

The risk matrix highlights each individual patch, the affected components, attack vectors and scores.

End users can make use of the automatic updating routine or download the new Java versions directly from the Oracle website. Windows users can check manually for updates from the Java Control Panel applet. They need to switch to the Update tab of the applet and click on the Update Now button there to run an update check and install the update on the system.

Users running the Java Runtime Environment 6 (who want to stay on 6 and not switch to 7) can download the JRE 6 Update 29 from this page. The new version is available for all supported operating systems. Windows users can download online or offline installers of the JRE.

Users who are already running the Java Runtime Environment 7 can download the new version that brings their version to JRE 7 Update 1 here.

Developers can download the Java Development Kit 7 Update 1 from the Java SE Downloads page. Additional developer related downloads are provided on that page as well.

Oracle classifies the patch update as critical. Users running either the JDK or JRE on their computer system should update the systems as quickly as possible to protect their operating systems from potential attacks and exploits.

Oracle notes that 19 of the 20 vulnerabilities can be remotely exploited without the need for authentication. System administrators who need more information should start with the official patch update advisory linked above. It includes temporary workaround suggestions that may mitigate potential attacks on computer systems.

A big advantage of flash cards is that they can be easily created. You can use most types of paper for instance for that. Users who like more control over their flash cards can use a software like Cabra instead to create the cards. This can be helpful to print multiple sets of cards, or to use machine typed cards.

Cabra is a multi-platform application to create flash cards. The application requires a recent version of the Java Runtime Environment on the system, but has no other dependencies besides that.

You can import existing projects into the application or create a new project. New flash cards are created with a click on the create a flashcard button.

Creation is simple and straightforward. Just enter a question, word or phrase under question, and an answer, word or phrase under answer. You can optionally add a picture or photo to the card which is automatically displayed on the question side of the card. Only plain text can be added to a card, with copy and paste being supported. This is handy if you have the questions and answers in text form and want to turn them into flash cards.

A click on study in the main interface offers to test the created cards. This can be used as a way to test the cards, or as a learning tool.

The card manager lists all existing flash cards of a project that has been loaded, the notes tab offers to add notes which anyone who loads the project can access and change.

Projects can be exported which saves them to the local system, or printed which will print the flash cards on a connected printer.

Cabra offers different themes that users can make use of if they like. It is easy to create new flash card sets with Cabra. Interested users can download the latest version of the open source application from the developer website. A handful of sample projects are available for download on the web page as well.

If you visit a trailer like this one in Google Chrome you get a notification at the top of the browser. It reads: The QuickTime plug-in needs your permission to run. Options are to always run the plugin on the site, run the plugin this time, load a learn more page or close the notification.

A similar alert is shown when you open a website that requires Java to be installed on the system (The Java plug-in needs your permission to run).

The Silverlight plugin is on the other hand not affected by that change. The selection of Always run on this site enables the plugin for that site, so that the notification is not shown anymore if you open other pages or the very same page on that domain. Run this time on the other hand runs enables the plugin for this moment, but will display the very same notification if you reload the page or switch to another page of the domain that requires Java.

The concept is basically similar to that of the NoScript extension for Firefox, with the difference that NoScript does not allow or disallow plugins, but only scripts that utilize plugins.

The core reason for the change according to Google is to protect Chrome users from vulnerabilities discovered in plugins that the majority may not use at all. And since that majority seems to be indifferent or unaware of the risks, it was necessary to implement a safety mechanism to protect them.

Chrome users who are visiting websites regularly that require one of the plug-ins on the other hand need to enable the plugin for every website that they visit regularly. Depending on how many websites they visit that make use of those plugins, it may take quite some time to get everything up and running again.

There is no option or setting available to enable the plugin for all websites, which is a slap in the face of users who make sure their plugins are up to date.

The missing option to always enable the plugin is a serious issue for users who make use of those limited plugins.

What’s your take on the issue?

Oracle today released the critical patch update Java 6 Update 24 to the public. The update fixes several critical vulnerabilities including the previously discovered vulnerability that causes hangs when parsing strings like “2.2250738585072012e-308″ to binary floating point numbers.

The risk matrix shows lists all 21 security fixes included in the update with information about the versions of Java affected, the access vector and if they are remotely exploitable.

Out of these 21 vulnerabilities, 13 affect Java client deployments. 12 of these 13 vulnerabilities can be exploited through Untrusted Java Web Start applications and Untrusted Java Applets, which run in the Java sandbox with limited privileges. One of these 13 vulnerabilities can be exploited by running a standalone application.

In addition, one of the client vulnerability affects Java Update, a Windows-specific component.

3 of the 21 vulnerabilities affect client and server deployments. These vulnerabilities can be exploited through Untrusted Java Web Start applications and Untrusted Java Applets, as well as be exploited by supplying malicious data to APIs in the specified components, such as, for example, through a web service.

3 vulnerabilities affect Java server deployments only. These vulnerabilities can be exploited by supplying malicious data to APIs in the specified Java components. Note that one of these vulnerabilities (CVE-2010-4476) was the subject of a Security Alert released on February 8th.

Finally, one of these vulnerabilities is specific to Java DB, a component in the Java JDK, but not included in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

(via)

System administrators and users who have Java installed, either in the form of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or the Java Development Kit (JDK) should update the software as soon as possible to protect their systems from possible exploits.

Users who have applied the manual command line patch need to uninstall Java before they can install the new updated version.

ActiveX Filtering is disabled by default but can be enabled by clicking on Tools > Safety > ActiveX Filtering. One of the easiest ways to find out that it is indeed the ActiveX Filtering that is repsonsible for broken contents is to enable ActiveX Filtering and visit Youtube. Youtube will notify the user that it is necessary to upgrade to Adobe Flash Player to watch the video. Users who disable ActiveX Filtering can watch the video without following that advice.

Many websites have suggested to disable ActiveX Filtering completely to be able to play games and watch videos again. That however is not the best solution available. While it is working it eliminates the added protection of the security module in Internet Explorer.

How to fix Java and Flash contents in Internet Explorer 9 with ActiveX Filtering enabled

Open Tools > Internet Options and switch to the Security tab there.

Internet Explorer supports four different zones each with their own distinctive security settings. All websites that are not locally accessible are using the security settings of the Internet zone, unless they have been added to Trusted Sites or Restricted Sites.

Trusted sites use less strict security rules by default while restricted sites highly restricted rules.

The idea now is to add the sites that you want to play Flash or Java contents on to the trusted sites. That alone however is not enough as it is necessary to make one small configuration change. Take a look how this is done for Youtube:

Select Trusted Sites from the available zones and click on the Sites button afterwards. This opens a new window with options to add or remove sites from the Trusted sites zone.

All you need to do is to enter youtube.com in the “Add this website to the zone” form, uncheck “Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone” and click on the Add button.

You do that for all sites that you access that make use of Flash, Java or other third party technologies that are added as plugins to Internet Explorer 9.

Once you are done click the close button.

Locate the custom level button and click it.

Scroll down until you find the entry Allow ActiveX Filtering under ActiveX controls and plug-ins. Note that it is enabled by default. All you need to do is to change the parameter to disable and click the ok button to save the new setting.

All Java, Flash and other third party plugin contents are from that moment on playing as usual on all sites that have been added to the Trusted Sites Zone.

And that’s it. It may happen that you stumble upon a new site that is not working properly. Just add it to the trusted sites listing to make it work as well. But be cautious with the sites that you add there as they are having more rights than standard Internet websites that use the standard Internet zone.

One option to change that is to change the custom level of the Trusted sites zone to the default medium-high which can be done in the settings of the zone. Make sure to disable ActiveX Filtering afterwards. That way you use the same security except for the ActiveX Filtering.

The vulnerability is triggered when 2.2250738585072012e-308 is converted to a binary floating number. It can be exploited to allow unauthenticated network attacks which can “cause a hang or frequently repeatable crash (complete Denial of Service) of the Java Runtime Environment”. Oracle notes that “Java based application and web servers are especially at risk from this vulnerability”.

The Java SE Floating Point Updater Tool has been created to “address the hang that occurs when parsing strings like “2.2250738585072012e-308″ to a binary floating point number”. The file is offered for download at this page. It is best to unpack the file directly into the /bin/ directory of the Java installation since it is necessary to run a command from the command prompt that references that file.

Windows users need to open an elevated command prompt and switch to the directory of their Java installation. The directory is located in the program files directory, in the case of a 64-bit operating system in the program files (x86) directory. The full path on my Windows 7 64-bit test system is C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin.

The command that needs to be entered is java -jar fpupdater.jar -u -v. The path of fpupdater.jar needs to be added if the file is not in the same directory as the java executable. The command assumes that the user is in the bin directory mentioned above. The path needs to be added to the command as well if that is not the case.

It can take up to two minutes before the patch is fully applied to the JRE or JDK. It is necessary to run the patch against any instance of JAVA on the system, for instance if the JDK with JRE and a standalone JRE are installed on the system.

The program should display that the patch was applied successfully in the end. Another indication are two files that are placed inside the lib folder by the application.

/lib/rt.jar.fpupdater Copy of rt.jar before the fix.
/lib/.fpupdater.log Zero-length file indicating that the update has taken

Users who have Java installed should patch the vulnerability as soon as possible. (thanks Dante for the tip, via)

PDF Jumbler is a free software program that offers several tools to work with pdf documents. To be precise, the free software offers to rearrange, delete or merge pages from PDF files.

PDF documents are added via drag and drop or the open document button at the top of the minimalistic program interface. It is then possible to rearrange pages with drag and drop, or to delete pages by selecting them first and selecting the delete button afterwards. The delete key on the keyboard deletes the selected pdf pages as well.

Additional documents can be added to any position of the existing documents. PDf Jumbler can merge multiple documents in one process.

The Save Document button saves the new pdf document to the hard drive. Zoom in and out buttons are available to preview individual pages of the pdf files that have been added to PDF Jumbler.

The portable software program is offered as a Java executable, which means that the operating system needs to support Java.

PDF Jumbler is as easy as it can get when it comes to merging, deleting or rearranging pages of one or multiple pdf documents.

The Open Source application can be downloaded from the project homepage over at SourceForge. (via)

Guten Reader is a Java application, which means that users need to have the latest Java Runtime Evironment (JRE) installed on their computer system before they can launch the ebook reader.

Guten Reader offers a simple interface with two main areas; A left sidebar that offers a search, the search results and a few text formatting settings, and the right area that displays the selected ebook so that it can be read in the application window.

Users can enter a search term, including book titles or authors, and the application will fill the results listing with hits. It is furthermore possible to pick selected authors directly from the pulldown menu next to the search.

A double-click on any search results item loads it in the main area. The book is loaded completely which means it may take a few moments before it appears, especially on systems with slower Internet connections.

The formatting options at the bottom allow the user to select a font and font size, and to enable text smoothing and the highlighting of dictionary words.

And that’s it. But that’s actually all that is needed to enjoy the ebook reader. There are a few things that the developer could optimize. It would for instance make sense to enable the caching of books, so that they do not have to be loaded again if they have been loaded before. Other desirable options are bookmarks to make it easier to continue reading a book that has been read at a previous session, and a better option to select a font from the list of available ones.

Guten Reader is a lightweight desktop reader for English Project Gutenberg ebooks. Guten Reader was tested on a Windows 7 Pro system with the latest JRE installed. It should work on all systems that Java can be installed on.

Neembuu Uploader is a straightforward program without bells and whistles. The Java application supports uploading of files to six different Internet file hosters. The supported hosters are easy-share.com, filedropper.com, filedude.com, hotfile.com, ifile.it and uploadmb.com.

To upload files, a user would simply pick a file from the local computer system and at least one of the six supported file hosters. It is alternatively possible to drag and drop files into the application window. That’s basically everything there is to it, and it really cannot get a lot easier than that.

File Upload

A click on Start Upload sends the file to all selected file hosters. The number of simultaneous file uploads can be changed right in the main interface. Users with fast upload speeds may want to increase the limit from the default limit of two.

It is possible to select multiple files at once in the file browser. These are then all added to the queue and processed according to the upload limitations specified in the program window.

Neembuu Uploader displays a file upload progress log that details file names and sizes, hosts, the upload status of each individual upload as well as the progress, and the upload and delete urls if available.

The file uploader keeps track of the files that are uploaded to the file hosts, and offers a history listing the relevant information.

The only other option available at this point in development is the ability to add a Hotfile account that will then be used to upload the files to that file hosting service.

Options are available to open selected file upload urls in the default web browser and to delete information that are no longer needed.

What’s missing? An option to export the available urls for starters, or the option to open a file url by left-clicking on its row in the file uploader. There are also no information on file hoster limitations, for instance if a hoster has a file size limit for uploads.

Neembuu Uploader Download And Compatibility

Neembuu Uploader is a Java application which means it requires a Java Runtime Environment. It works fine on Windows, and should run fine on other operating systems that support Java. The program is available for download at the Sourceforge project website.

Alternatives

Lots of alternatives are available, and we have reviewed our fair share of them. Among them File Uploader, a program that is currently supporting more than 150 different file hosts, the portable uploader Multi Uni Uploader or the online service Gazup

Among the plugins that are exploited the most are Adobe plugins, and Java. Recent findings in Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report suggest that Java exploits have increased steadily, and caused a huge spike in the second quarter of 2010, rising from under 500,000 to more than 6 million in quarter 3.

In comparison, pdf exploits stayed well below the 100,000 mark in that time.

Holly Stewart analyzed the causes of the spike and came to the conclusion that the attacks were driven by three vulnerabilities. Interestingly enough, patches are available for some time for those vulnerabilities. This suggests that many users do not update Java on their computer system regularly.

Those exploit attempts pale in comparison to other threats on the Internet. Malware trends of the report show exploits making up less than 5% of all infected computers. Still, exploits have risen from less than 2% in the third quarter of 2009 to almost 5% in the second quarter of 2010.

Why is Java that dominant in the exploits category? The main cause seems to be because people do not update Java as frequently as other browser plugins. Up until recently, researchers and reporters did not mention Java nearly as often as Adobe Flash or Adobe Reader when it came to third party plugins being exploited. This may be the core reason, but there are others.

Java, which usually means the Java Runtime Environment, is installed on the majority of computer systems. Coupled with the fact that Java is barely used by most Internet users, and that update notifications are non-existent make it a prime target for attackers.

Some browser developers have started to add plugin checks either during updates of the browser or in the plugin listing.

So what can you do to protect your system? First, if you do not need Java you can simply disable it in the web browser. This protects the browser from possible exploits. You may also want to consider uninstalling Java completely, considering that there is no good reason to keep it on the system if it is not needed.

Users who need to work with Java need to monitor JRE updates. They can do this manually, by reading news sites that report on security updates, or by installing a third party software like Secunia PSI that will inform them of updates.

The Update release notes list the full external version as 1.6.0_22-b04, and the external version as 6u22. It lists a total of 16 different bugs that have been fixed in the update.

• 6897143 – hotspot – garbage_collector – Stress test crashes during HeapInspection using ParallelGC
• 6919638 – hotspot – garbage_collector – CMS: ExplicitGCInvokesConcurrent misinteracts with gc locker
  6837842 hotspot jni JNI_CreateJavaVM crashes under impersonation
• 6948223 – idl – orb – Corba issue, fail to reload object
• 6969236 – java build – Regression: JRE identification fails due to Oracle rebranding in java.exe
• 6893325 – java – classes_awt – JComboBox and dragging to an item outside the bounds of the containing JFrame is not selecting that
• 6974093 – java – classes_lang – Thread.clone should NOT invoke addUnstarted on started threads
• 6959911 – java – classes_security -Update Entrust.net CA (2048) root and add new Entrust Root CA-G2
• 6725789 – java – classes_util_concurrent – ScheduledExecutorService does not work as expected in jdk7/6/5
• 6547241 – java – imageio – JPEGImageReader.readImage crash
• 6557086 – java – imageio – Attempt to dispose jpeg reader form another thread may cause crash
• 6944981 – java_deployment – general – Name field missing in mix code security warning dialog for Java Webstart application
• 6869937 – java_plugin – plugin2 – New Plugin – Vista&XP Focus never returned to browser
• 6846148 – jaxb-xsd – runtime – Namespace gets lost for null scope while using RetQName
• 6946312 – jaxp – sax – XML parser omits characters callback to ContentHandler since 6u18
• 6957378 – jmx – classes – JMX memory leak

Users who have Java installed should download it as soon as possible from the official website. A script on the site will detect the installed Java version, and display a download link if the installed version is not the latest. The release notes are accessible here.

Now, NeoWin is reporting that the new licensing scheme for Android apps has been cracked less than a month after coming on-line.

The “Licensing Service for Android Applications” was supposed to provide developers a “secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications.”  In theory, the new licensing system would verify against the Android Market licensing server, which would in turn verify the application against existing sales records. If no sales records were found, the application would show an error explaining that it was not properly licensed.

The man responsible for cracking the security has published a paper on his websitein which he details how to reprogram a Java app, which is the language most Android apps are written in, to change its status from unlicensed to licensed.

He says…

I am very much against piracy, and very much pro-Google. I have spent more time researching copy protection for my applications than development of the applications themselves.  Our findings show that most (any?) apps can be easily patched and stripped of licensing protection, making them an easy target for off-Market, pirated distribution. By corollary, this means that sites dedicated to pirating apps can continue to do so, using a few automated scripts mixed with some smarts.

He also provides a video demonstrating his findings.  Google have not yet commented on the crack.

While it is perfectly possible to install the apps one-by-one, or to restore them from an existing backup, installing them in bulk proved to be a flexible time-saving option as well.

We have covered several programs in the past, that offered to create application collections to install the apps contained at once on a target system. Among them was AllMyApps, Ninite Custom Software Installations and FreeApp.

All those software installers have in common that they offer to install a limited selection of programs in bulk. Those programs are usually very popular or common apps.

Lets see if Essential Software Installer follows the same principle. The JAVA application displays a list of supported software on startup. The programs are divided into web browsers, plugins and software.

essential software installer

The application detects installed software automatically, and indicates them with a checkmark.

The main difference between Essential Software Installer and programs like Ninite is the way applications are downloaded and installed. There is no option to select multiple programs for download and installation, each program needs to be selected individually in the program interface.

application installation

A click on download opens a new window with links to the developer website and a file hosting download. Both links open websites with a download link in the default web browser. This basically means that software has to be downloaded and installed manually.

Now that the process has been established, it should be clear that Essential Software Installer is not a program to speed up the installation of applications.

In its current stage, the program acts as a bookmarking tool containing links that point to download pages for supported applications.

The developers should consider adding the capabilities to automate the download and installation of programs that are supported by the program. The program in its current stage is as helpful as a bookmarks folder with the same set of links.

Considering that this is an early beta we have our hopes set high that the developer will integrate that functionality in a later release.

Essential Software Downloader can be downloaded from the project’s website over at Sourceforge.

But Ghacks readers know more, downloads for the Java Runtime Environment and Java SDK are already enabled in the Sun Download Center.

Users who work with the JRE can download the latest version from this download center page. The software is available for Windows, Linux and Solaris.

java 6 update 21

The Java Developer Toolkit has also been updated and can be downloaded from this page instead. It raises the version to 6 Update 21 as well and is available for the same platforms.

The release notes list the changes in the Java Update. Among the new features is support for additional system configurations including Google Chrome 4, performance improvements in Java VisualVM and at least one security fix. Developers and interested users can take a closer look at all the bugfixes of Java 6 Update 21 on this web page.

The security issue that has been fixed in this update makes it a recommended update for every user who has Java installed on a computer system.

The portable Java installer can be downloaded from the Portable Apps website. It then needs to be executed to download the latest JRE to a location on the computer system.

The portable Java Runtime Environment provides the Java environment for applications of the apps suite.

Probably more interesting than this is the fact that portable apps offer a Java Portable Launcher which can be used to launch third party Java programs as well.

It can be that those third party apps are not necessarily portable in nature but that is the only difference there is. One benefit of this approach is that background processes like jqs.exe are not automatically running on the computer system.

java portable launcher

It is important to download and install the applications in the right sequence. Here is how it is done. Start by downloading the Portable Apps suite from the main website. It is sufficient to download the bare bones version but other versions are fine as well.

Install the Portable Apps suite on your computer, preferably on a USB stick or other portable storage device.

Download portable Java [link] and Java portable launcher [link] now.

It is now possible to launch (the now portable) launcher. This launcher is used to start applications that are linked to it and to install new applications from the Options > Install A New App menu.

java portable

Select the executables of Java Portable and Java Portable Launcher one after the other. Both applications will be placed in the Portable Apps suite directory structure. They are also portable from that moment on.

Third party Java applications can now be launched from the portable apps start menu or by dragging and dropping the JAR files directly on the JavaPortableLauncher.exe file in the directory structure.

I am here to tell you, at least with Ubuntu 10.04, there is a simple way of installing Java. That’s is the purpose of this article. Of course I will also take this one step further and show you how to make Firefox aware of your java installation. With this installed you can go ahead and visit those java-is-required web sites, as well as build those web applications you need to serve up.

Installation

We are going to be installing Java with the help of apt-get so, as you can guess, we will be doing this from the command line. So fire up your favorite terminal window and get ready to work.

The first step is to add the necessary repositories to the /etc/apt/sources.list file. So open that file up with your favorite text editor and add the following line to the bottom of that file:

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner

Now to update apt, issue the command:

sudo apt-get update

Once apt has completed its update, you are ready to install. The actual installation command is:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts

The above command should install everything you need for you to get your java on. During the installation you may have to “read” and “agree” to the licensing of the software. Do this or the installation will exit without completing. Once the installation is complete you are done. Right? Maybe. But, before you assume all is complete, let’s check our installation. The easiest way to test your installation is to issue the command java -version at which point you should see something like:

java version “1.6.0.20″
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_20-b02)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 16.3-b01, mixed mode)

That will tell you for sure Java is installed.

Hello Firefox!

Now it’s time to let Firefox in on the installation. This too is simple. From the same command line you installed Java in issue the command:

locate libjavaplugin

The above command should return numerous results. The result you are looking for will resemble /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun1.6.0.20/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so.  Now that you know the path you need to create a link to this in the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins directory. First change into the plugins directory with the command cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and then create the link with the command ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun1.6.0.20/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so. Now all you need to do is restart Firefox and then enter about:plugins in the address bar to see that Java is now enabled in your browser.

Final thoughts

Did I say it was going to be easy? Maybe that was a slight exaggeration. I realize that installing Java on Linux isn’t nearly as it is on Windows, but it is certainly do-able. And in some situations, a must do. I hope this has helped make that “do” a little more “able”.

It basically boils down to this: If you want to execute Java programs you need the JRE. It does not really matter here if the Java program is executed in a web browser or locally on the computer system as both need the JRE to be installed. The Java Runtime Environment is often referred to by users as Java, Java Virtual Machine or Java VM which is technically not correct.

JRE Download refers to the download of said Runtime environment. Computer users have several options to download and verify the Java Runtime Environment which we would like to address in the following paragraphs.

JRE Downloads

Sun, which recently has been bought by Oracle, is providing free downloads of the Java Runtime Environment on their website. The easiest way to find the most recent version of the JRE is to visit this redirecting link on Java.com. The JSP script will automatically detect the web browser and operating system and load the right download for the user.

The latest version of the JRE is currently Java 6 Update 20. The Runtime Environment gets regular updates which means that this version will go up in the future.

Another option to download Java is to open the download page for all operating systems instead. The user needs to select the right operating system on that page and install the JRE manually after downloading the installer to the local computer system.

Windows users can download an offline or online installer. We suggest to download the offline installer as it contains all the files needed to install Java right away while the online installer downloads components from the web after the initial download.

Java will be added as a plugin to installed web browsers and available in the desktop environment to execute Java programs. The installation will also add the Java Quick Starter (jqs.exe) to the startup programs. You might want to consult the article above for more information on JQS.exe and why it might be a good idea to remove it from the startup programs list.

Verify that the JRE is installed

It is now time to verify that the JRE is properly installed after downloading and installing it on the computer system. This can be done on the Verify Java Version page at the Java website. Just visit that website and click the Verify Java version button.

The next page will execute a small Java program that detects the current version of the Java Runtime Environment that is installed on the computer system.

The page links to the Java download page in case an older version was detected.

Troubleshooting Java

Things can go wrong sometimes. The best approach in our experience is to completely wipe Java from the computer system to install it anew to ensure that no old files are still present on the computer.

This can be done manually or by using the software program Java Ra which provides the means to remove older Java versions from the computer system.

Computer users who have Java installed might want to start with the verification first to see if their JRE version is the latest available one. JRE downloads are also available on many download portals in case the Java website is temporarily not accessible.

The changelog lists all the bug fixes of the latest version including changes to root certificates, an interim fix for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) Man-in-the-Middle Attack and the raising of a warning dialog if a signed application contains signed and unsigned components.

All the changes and fixes including links to further information can be accessed at the changelog page.

Users can visit the JRE download page to test their version of the Java Runtime Environment to evaluate if an update is necessary.

Users with outdated versions of the JRE can download it immediately from the download page for their operating system. The Java Runtime Environment is offered as an offline and online installer for Windows on the standard download page.

It is recommended to check the verify Java page again after the update to make sure it was applied successfully.