Firefox's Blocked-By-Default Java Isn't Going Down Well

JG0LD writes "The Firefox web browser will, henceforth, require users to manually activate Java objects on sites that they visit, Mozilla has confirmed. This even affects up-to-date versions of Java, which you can see on the block list. The change is aimed at improving security and moving away from a dependence on proprietary plug-ins, but critics say it will cause untold headaches for developers, admins and less-technical end-users. "

Comments

Didn't they learn from Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Users hate authorizing things, and become trained drones blindly okaying everything anyway.

As security models go, it's a poor one.

Re:Didn't they learn from Microsoft?

[Doh!]

So... they should disable all plugins like Java and Flash and not let the user authorize anything? That would never work.

Re:Didn't they learn from Microsoft?

[sortius_nod]

Indeed, never trust basic security to users. Better to keep a your workstations up-to-date & deal with the IT nightmare that is updating rogue workstations than to deal with the IT apocalypse of click monkeys.

Re:Didn't they learn from Microsoft?

[erroneus]

Yes, while I tend to agree with that notion, I also have to remind that this is web Java applets we're talking about. Who does that any more? There are four places where I see that:

1. Business/Office web based apps (Documentum in my case)
2. Cisco "web interfaces"
3. An older HP print server "web interface."
4. Webmin (optional) controls for telnet/ssh and file management.

In each of those cases, I am very comfortable making those explicit exceptions. There may be more. Not wanting to speak for the whole world, but at this point, I can't imagine this being a huge problem. So anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong by providing other examples.

Re:Didn't they learn from Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a security model. It is a responsibility model.
Now the responsibility lies even less with Mozilla and more with the user who installed Java in the first place.
If that user can not take hint, and becomes a trained drone, that is his problem. The only more secure thing to do would be to simply refuse running java at all. Obviously that is even less realistic.

Headaches for developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

They should probably get their heads checked, why are they making Java apps for webpages still?

Already considering uninstalling firefox

[Puls4r]

I'm not a developer, but I'm pretty savvy with computers. So the first time I got that message, I went and updated Java. Fixed it, right? Nope. So I clicked around, and finally accidentally clicked on the little red icon up in the menu bar. Success! Now it gave me an option to run it. Which popped up another window asking for permission. Dear Firefox: You have a small portion of the browser market. Making yourself a nuisance by breaking big pieces of the web is not intelligent. It just drives people to chrome, or IE. Especially everyday users who don't want to screw around and just want things to work.

Like?

[The Cat]

moving away from a dependence on proprietary plug-ins

Like the browsers themselves?

Hey maybe we can get all the people at Adobe and Oracle laid off the same week. Wouldn't that be fun?

Isn't it great how the web is moving away from "proprietary plug-ins" and straight into proprietary mobile devices?

And look at the web users cheer. The people who built the web would recoil in horror at what you have allowed to happen to the Internet.

I give it five years, maybe six, and the Internet will be completely walled off by a McDonalds logo.

Untold headaches?

[ichthus]

We'll see. I've been running the FlashBlock plugin for years (to manually enable flash elements) with VERY FEW adverse effects. I doubt having to manually activate Java elements will be any worse.

Re:Untold headaches?

[macraig]

You just succinctly explained why tools like NoScript are so desperately needed, not why they aren't. The real problem is Web design that serves an agenda contrary to the desires and rights of those who use the Web. Fix that problem and annoying tools like NoScript won't be necessary.

What that means, BTW, is that Web developers need to grow both a conscience and a spine and say NO when they're asked to code Bad Things. It also means that the pushovers and corporate plants over at the W3C need to stop adding crap to the standard that aids and abets these Bad Things.

What's the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle Java has ALSO decided, due to the persistent security problems due at least in part to having concurrent (i.e., old) versions installed (and the fact that the largest exploit kits have used Java as one of their main vectors for some time now, alongside Adobe Reader of course) to disable Java plugins in the browser by default in recent updates.

So, what's the big deal? This is the correct decision from a security perspective. I can't remember the last time I saw someone on the World Wide Web actually USE a Java applet for good, rather than for evil. And I'd have noticed, because even after all these years, it still runs like an absolute dog. It's the kind of thing you might use on a local application (such as Minecraft, which is what I think probably most people who still have it installed use it for now, albeit they'd likely have the 64-bit version which wouldn't have a working browser plugin in a 32-bit browser anyway!) or an intranet site (which is your administrator's problem, to re-enable it for that site only, or to use a different browser for the web and the intranet, which you can totally do and is good practice).

I've got many other criticisms about Firefox recently from a security and performance perspective - let's face it, it's just not the zippy, efficient browser it used to be, even relatively-speaking, it's lost its mojo and the security team have a reputation for having a slow, and fairly arsey, response - but this seems to be the right decision and they should be lauded for it. IE has also done it, as has Chrome.

Re:What need?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If you are still developing/depending on applets, 1995 called they want their stupid ideas back.

Hi 2013, this is 1995 calling. When your new shiny toys have the portability and performance and flexibility that we had nearly two decades ago, and developers can write software using them with a reasonable expectation that it will still be working in 5 or 10 years (or even 1 or 2 years) without needing constant maintenance, then you get a vote. Until then, we'll keep our "stupid" ideas, because they've been helping us get useful work done since before you were born. Kthxbye.

Re:Is it time to fork Firefox yet?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The number of support e-mails in my inbox this week from those users suggests that they aren't too happy about being "defended" in this way.

Re:Uses of Java applets

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Depending on who you ask, there are about 2.5B people using the Internet now. If we assume most of them use the Web and we assume that the pattern for Chrome is representative of the general population, that means more than 200,000,000 people used a Java applet at some point in the previous month.

Even I am surprised by that, but in any case, it seems you and I have very different ideas of what "almost extinction-level rare" means.