The Java plugin has been with us since 1995 and was originally developed for the browser Netscape, more than a decade before the days of Google Chrome and 9 years before Mozilla Firefox.

Java The Java browser plug-in lets Chrome run applets, small programs embedded in a Web page. Java applets enable dynamic Web pages and interactive web programs.

Chrome 42, released to the stable channel today, will take a big step toward pushing old browser plugins, including Java and Silverlight, off the Web.

NPAPI plug-ins were blocked since January 2014, but some of the popular ones were whitelisted, including Java, Unity, Silverlight, Facebook Video, and a couple of others.

Plug-ins can open vulnerabilities in even relatively secure browsers like Chrome. Even coders, like Jeff Atwood, can fall victim. Here's how to reign in plug-ins like Java, or disable them ...

Choose Plugins in the left pane, scroll to the entry for the Java plug-in, and click its Disable button. Disable Firefox's Java plug-in via the browser's Add-on Manager.

Oracle decided to kill off the Java browser plugin at long last. After acquiring Java in 2010, the company said that the plugin will be deprecated with the release of JDK 9.

Java, used by 8.9% of Chrome users, will not be whitelisted by default because it is already blocked for security reasons. Other NPAPI-based plugins can be enabled on a case-by-case basis by the user.