Tech Tip

Ed Bott is one of the smartest tech people I know.  He's been writing wonderful articles about technology for a long time, and currently has a blog on the big tech site, ZDNet.  Up until last fall, I'd only read Ed Bott.  When I attended the IFA Berlin tech trade show, though, I got the chance to meet the good fellow and spend quite a bit of time with him.  He was as nice and friendly, as he was TechSmart.

On that trip, he gave me some advice -- disable Java from my browser He said that most people think it's important that Java be running on their system, but it's not.  And Java, more than many of the well-known add-ons, offers the leakiest door for viruses and really bad people to sneak in and screw up things. 

I asked if I'd miss having Java on my system.  "No," was his answer, just get rid of it.  The very rare times you might come across website that requires Java, you probably won't care that much if you can access it, and there might even be a workaround.  Get rid of it.  Just get rid of it.  It was one of his great life's mission, he said, to get people to disable Java.

I disabled Java.

That was about five months ago.  I have yet to come across anything that required Java.  I haven't missed having it.  And my computer is much safer for it.

I bring this up because there was a Java zero-day "exploit" discovered recently.  Ed has an article here about it, along with a link within the article with instructions for how to disable Java from your browser Well-worth checking out.