14 DAY TRIAL // As usual, Apple has been sluggish in patching the latest discovered bugs in Sun's system for developing cross-platform applications. Sun patched at least 14 vulnerabilities in Java last week, with Version 6.0 Build 11 now available for download on Windows PCs, but also addressed 34 non-security problems ranging from a data corruption bug to a compatibility issue with some Java-based games, PCWorld reports.
The report reveals that Apple is again late in delivering its own Java Update. Historically, Apple has been criticized for its sluggish patching of third-party software applications, while maintaining its own version of the software. Mac users may have to wait months before the latest Java update is released for them, at which point Windows users may already be downloading a new version altogether.
A good example is the September release, which fixed more than two dozen vulnerabilities, according to the same report. Some of those vulnerabilities had already been patched in updates for Java for Windows, Linux, and Solaris, as early as March 2008.
Apple has been slow in delivering updates, especially when open-source code bundled with its OS has been in need of testing. Charles Miller, a researcher with Independent Security Evaluators, called Apple's inability to keep up with open-source fixes "negligent," in a statement issued last year. Moreover, Apple has even failed to schedule updates, let alone release them around the same time as their Windows counterparts.
As such, all Mac users can do for the moment is use Sun's website to check which is the newest version of Java they can get for their machine. If you are aware of the current version of Java on your computer, or know that Java is not present on your machine, you can use the link below to get the latest available version for both OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
Download Java for Mac OS X 10.4 / 10.5 Release 7 - September 24 (Free)