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

web browser A web browser is application software 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 screen. Browsers are used on ...

from

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, ...

implemented in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

. It was the first browser to support

Java applet Java applets were small applications written in the Java programming language, or another programming language that compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Java bytecode. The user launched the Java applet from a ...

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 Java developers started writing WebRunner, which was a clone of the internet 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, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

. 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, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick ...

'' movie. WebRunner's first public demonstration was given by John Gage and James Gosling at the Technology Entertainment Design Conference in

Monterey, California Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...

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 describ ...

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