Sun squashes over 2400 Java bugs

People "into java" know that previous 1.4.0 and 1.4.1 were full of bugs that caused many, users and developers alike, to pull their hair, including this now bald writer. In fact, according to Sun, over 2400 bugs have been fixed since the original 1.4.0 release.

If you use Sun's Java VM with your IE, Mozilla, or Netscape 7.x browser, you'll be glad to know that many, if not all, applet-related bugs documented on Bugzilla have been fixed in this release. A nice addition in this release (on Windows at least) an "auto-updater" that periodically checks the sun web server for java version updates, something that has been badly needed since the java momentum started in 1996.

Another surprising change is that it is offered in two editions, one bundled with the NetBeans IDE v3.5 (a modular, standards- based integrated development environment, written in Java itself), or as the usual distribution with just the VM.

To top all this, the installer file size is down to a 1.4MB "active installer". You should check it out.

Download it from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/index.html µ