The other day, I got prompted that a new version of Java was available and I should upgrade. This got me to thinking "what on my system actually uses Java?". As it turns out, nothing that I can find.
Java (not to be confused with Javascript) seems to be one of those things we think we need when in actuality, a lot of us do not need it. Of course there are certain web sites and applications which require Java to function, but for the most part the web uses Flash (or a similar alternative) for most of its intense interactive content and not very many desktop applications are built on Java anymore (other than OpenOffice, I can’t think of any but if you know of popular apps built on Java, please post in the comments).
So do you really need Java on your system? I uninstalled it several days ago and haven’t noticed anything. If you don’t use anything which requires Java, it does no good on your system so just remove it. After all, you can always easily add it back if you ever need it.
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Doubtful. Which makes those pesky Java update prompts all the more irritating.
I do not run Flash for security reasons; Java has its uses. E.g., Secunia scan is based on it, as no doubt others are.
Axeda requires it for it’s java-based VNC viewer.