As a developer, I kind of take offense to the allegations of Java (and Flash as well, I suppose, it's supposed to be pretty good) being "crappy software". The JVM is actually a rather awesome piece of software which offers good performance and good garbage collection. And interesting new languages have been created and flourished on top of the JVM. (Scala, Clojure)
Please know the difference between bad/customer unfriendly handling of installers/updaters, and actually bad software.
Take a look at the security record of both in browser plugin scenarios and get back to us on that...
While Java admittedly has a solid underlying core, the criticism is for the entire platform, which has some significant problems, some technical, some security, and many organizational.
I'll definitely admit that the browser plugin is a piece of crap which should be moved away from. Sadly, there's still a ways to go for that as a number of countries use them pretty extensively. (bank interfaces are brought up a lot on HN) And yes, organizationally they definitely have some problems. The JVM has still been making progress though, with new garbage collectors and project lambda.
That said, I'm not sure what technical problems you're referring to. The JVM seems to work quite well on all platforms, even if it can be kinda clunky to program in Java at times. (which is part of the reason I mentioned other languages) And yes, I know the JVM is slow to start. It isn't designed for small scripts. Use Python or something else for that.
Yes. And what's even worse is this: How many sites in common use actually need the Java browser plugin? And yet, if you are not careful, it will be enabled in your browser, thus increasing your vulnerability for no good reason.
If regular users were commonly aware of what browser plugins they actually need, and knew how to go through the list and disable the ones they actually didn't need, that would mitigate things somewhat.
For the average consumer, "Java" is crapware. It has a horrible security track record, to the point where many national computer security advocates recommend removing Java from your computer. You get constant nagging from the Java auto updater, which you must attend to or you place yourself at risk. And it installs toolbars.
On my Windows gaming box I get a dialog box that says jusched.exe : cannot verify certificate of somesubdomain.oracle.com. I don't know if I'm more or less at risk if I press "no", but I guess the average user is just going to press "yes". So I guess my Java is now out of date but I'm not going to install software with admin privileges if there's a problem in validating certificates.
I will never ever install Java on a Windows box again. I did install it because I wanted to play a game written in Java. The game was unplayable because it was so slow and jerky - because it was written in Java.
There may be bits and pieces of cool tech inside, but for the vast majority of computer users, Java is crapware.
I'd be happy if the Java updater would garbage collect old versions of Java after it installed a new one. How many versions does the average user actually need?
Please know the difference between bad/customer unfriendly handling of installers/updaters, and actually bad software.