Exactly.

Java was so buggy and had so many security issues about 20 years ago that my local authorities gave a security advisory to not install it at all in end user/home computers. That finally forced the hand of some banks to stop using it for online banking apps.

Flash also had a long run of security issues.

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Gravityloss 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

In the 2000s, my bank was acquired by some bigger bank from another country. Their long standing, well working and fast banking application was replaced with a very dysfunctional Java applet thing. I was using Linux at the time and IIRC it either worked barely, or then not at all. I phoned the bank, and they told about a secret alternate 'mobile' url, that had a proper working service. I used that for a while before ultimately switching to another bank. The bank sent apology letters to customers and waived some fees also as they saw many of them leave. It made me really wake up that to the fact if the company can do these visible level blunders, what else is going on there, and also, how the customer is in such a vulnerable position.

On the other hand, NASA in the past had some really great Java applets to play with some technical concept and get updated diagrams, animations and graphs etc.

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bigfatkitten 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I worked for a large financial institution in the early 2010s.

They ran Windows XP, IE 8, and they stuck with a 3-4 year old JRE to support one piece of shit line of business app that was used only by about 100 (out of 50,000) users internally.

That institution had endpoints popped by drive-by exploit kits dropping banking trojans like Zeus daily.

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cube00 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> banks to stop using it for online banking apps

I never understood why so many banks flocked to building their online banking in applets when it wasn't like you needed anything more advanced than HTML to view balances and make transactions.

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im3w1l 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Java did many things very right. It's a really fast language. It's memory safe. It could run anywhere. It had well-thought out namespacing at a time where namespacing was a concept most people barely knew they needed it. It had an advanced security model.

It was a very reasonable bet at the time imo.

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wiseowise 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because they’ve hired a bunch of Java devs that don’t know anything outside of Java?

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72deluxe 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Amusingly, we see the repeat of this in "desktop" apps that are just web technologies in a browser, wasting CPU time and RAM for "ease" of development. (I don't think it's easier at all - a mess of JS callbacks makes it difficult to see the initiator of anything).

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wiseowise 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Amusingly, we see the repeat of this in "desktop" apps that are just web technologies in a browser, wasting CPU time and RAM for "ease" of development.

Web is chosen because it is the fastest way to hit all platforms, not because it's a skill issue.

> a mess of JS callbacks makes it difficult to see the initiator of anything

Async/await is available in most browsers since 2017, what year are you from?

	▲	72deluxe 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think the initial idea of being the fast to hit all platforms was the idea, but this has meant a lack of skill in developers who don't know about each platform, so you end up with a mess of apps that attempt to (badly) replicate native elements like menus. You are right about async/await. I am old! (But I still find the development of software in a large JS system unmanageable versus old C++ development approaches).

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theandrewbailey 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Java Servlets and JSPs output HTML. I've been building a blog with them for over 15 years.

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elric 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm getting the impression you're conveniently ignoring how piss poor HTML/AJAX/JS capabilities were back then, or even how slow internet speeds were.

Applets could do things that JS could not. Some bank applets did client side crypto with keys that were on the device. Good luck doing that in JS back then. My bank's applet could cope with connection losses so I could queue a payment while dialup did it's thing.