HotJava (later called HotJava Browser to distinguish it from HotJava Views) was a modular, extensible

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

from

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

implemented in

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

. It was the first browser to support

Java applet Java applets were applet, small applications written in the Java (programming language), Java programming language, or another programming language that Compiled language, compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Ja ...

s, and was Sun's demonstration platform for the then-new technology. It has since been discontinued and is no longer supported. Furthermore, the Sun Download Center was taken down on July 31, 2011, and the download link on the official site points to a placeholder page saying so.

Origins

In 1994, a team of Oak/Java developers started writing WebRunner, which was a clone of the web browser

Mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

. It was based on the

programming language. The name ‘WebRunner’ was a tribute to the ''

Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Di ...

'' movie. The official Java name was adopted a year later in 1995 when Sun decided to make Oak public and integrate it with the web. WebRunner's first public demonstration was given by John Gage and

James Gosling James Arthur Gosling (born 19 May 1955) is a Canadian computer scientist, best known as the founder and lead designer behind the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Gosling was elected a member of the National Academy of E ...

at the Technology Entertainment Design Conference in

Monterey, California Monterey ( ; ) is a city situated on the southern edge of Monterey Bay, on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. Located in Monterey County, California, Monterey County, the city occupies a land area of and recorded a popu ...

in 1995. Renamed HotJava, it was officially announced in May the same year at the SunWorld conference. The parser code was reused by the standard Java libraries.

Usage

HotJava had somewhat limited functionality compared to other browsers of its time. More critically, HotJava suffered from the inherent performance limitations of

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally descr ...

implementations of the day (both in terms of processing speed and memory consumption) and hence was considerably sluggish.

References

External links

* *
HotJava @ Evolt
*

Discontinued web browsers Java platform software Sun Microsystems software {{web-software-stub

Origins

Usage

See also

References

External links