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Comment by dmpk2k | Hacker News Reader

Will it? I've been browsing without Java for years, and I can only remember problems with one site (some hilarious throwback from the late 90s). For general browsing, I doubt anyone will notice a difference.

Maybe for corporate use, but isn't that mostly IE anyway?

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Depends on where you are in the world. Java is required for online banking in Norway, while it's mostly unused in Sweden, the neighbouring country. Both use Java for online verification to government sites.

and they should definitely stop doing that. for me seeing Java on the client side is a sign of bad development.

They will. It was announced earlier this year that the Norwegian banks will move over to a HTML5/js authentication. The government identification has been the same as the banks, so that too will disappear.

Seeing browser-developers ignore the real world and just go ahead with their agendas unconcerned about how it affects the actual users of their browser is also a sign of bad development.

Banks in some countries having their heads in the sand for 15 years is not a reason to continue endangering the global economy. It's time for Norway to pull itself out of the dark ages.

You have to stop and think for a moment, though - it's kind of cool that the Firefox development team can basically say "Norwegian authorities - you need to ditch your $100 million outdated software solution because it is unsafe, and we are going to announce this to all your users".

Not so cool if you're a Norwegian taxpayer, one suspects.

As a Norwegian taxpayer, I disagree :-) I don't know a single Norwegian who actually enjoys having to update Java again (and anyone who's turned on the news in the last 3 years here has heard of Java security holes).

(And if this really is just a click-to-play type inconvenience, well, that's a hell of a lot less than the hoops that users are used to going through in order to get into their BankID banks here.)

Governments and banks. They are not exactly known for hiring the best and implementing best practices, regardless of what you think of Java on the client side.

Exhibit A: healthcare.gov

> Both use Java for online verification to government sites.

Do they? I thought Sweden used the online bank identity system for verification (bankid), which is either a standalone downloadable application, a smartcard image, or an mobile app. Not sure how an Firefox policy would effect this even if some parts of the bankid uses Java.

Bankid is based on java iirc.

I believe apps like Google hangouts use Java/Need Java enabled.

I think the commenter shiloh.enriquez on that Mozilla thread had a decent point in that many users just want the thing to work, won't necessarily understand or have the patience to understand and will move from FF to Chrome or IE.

Google Hangouts is a plugin of its own, it does not use or depend on Java.

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