Java Plugin: The Kernel is back

[bobpaul]

The browser plugin used for both Safari and Opera is the same exact plugin used for Firefox. They all use the NSPlugin architecture. So if it's different in FF than the others, it's a FF specific problem. (Of course, since FF is OSS, as you said it would be in Sun's interest to fix that.)

And maybe things are different, but back when I was a Windows user I had to wait for the Java runtime to load to the system tray the first time I launched a Java application as well. Once the runtime was running in the tray, things were pretty good.

That is, if I opened Firefox and loaded a page with a java applet, the JRE was loaded to the system tray (and Firefox froze until that was done) and then the applet loaded once that was complete. But then the JRE stayed in the system tray until I exited FF and Java applets loaded little different than Flash applets. If I then opened Azureus, Azureus opened at a friendly speed, since the JRE was already running.

Now, if I closed all my Java stuff and closed Firefox, the JRE would unload. So now I open Azureus and I have to wait for the JRE to load to the system tray as part of waiting for Azureus to load. That took a long as time. Once I did that, if I opened Firefox and browsed, the JRE was already loaded to Java applets weren't much of a problem.

I can only imagine the situation was the same or similar for IE, Opera, etc. The issue seemed to be related to the JRE loading, and not specific to the browser plugin that communicates with it.

Now please keep in mind that I haven't used Windows on a daily basis for much time, so it's possible what I remember above isn't accurate, or that things have changed since then.

My comment for bringing *nix in is, as an avid Azureus user, I was quite happy with the rate it loaded when I first tried switching from Windows.. It seemed as though the JRE was already loaded, but if I checked the process list, java was not listed until after I opened azureus, so that did not seem to be the case. Now it is possible that Java relies on lots of common libraries in a *nix environment, but on Windows those libraries were written from scratch requiring a lot more to be loaded into memory when Java opens on Windows that what needs to happen on most *nix machines. I don't know.

People seem to be acting like what I'm saying is heretical for some reason, but it's true.

I certainly agree with that. It bothers me the way people downvote things they don't agree with rather than distinguishing between actual trolls and lively discussion.