Installing Java in PureOS is it safe?

I am trying to install Qortal on my PureOs machine and it says that i need to install Java. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have Java or because my Java is outdated (i am doing my automatic updates regularly). If I don,t have Java on my computer i imagine it’s because Java its is no very secure. So that’s why it is not installed at the beginning. So is it safe to install it?
I am new in a world of Linux and even more in PureOs.
Thanks

which java

and if anything is shown

java -version

It would be helpful to understand whether it is after the JRE (Java Runtime Environment, all you need if all you are going to do is to run Java programs) or the JDK (Java Development Kit, what you need if you are going to develop and compile Java programs yourself).

Usually it’s only the JRE that is needed.

I wouldn’t agree with that.

For a start, you wouldn’t want a Linux distro to be a 10 GB download and come with absolutely everything pre-installed. A choice to include something installed as standard can be just down to what percentage of the customer base is going to use it. If it’s only going to be used by 10% of customers then let those 10% install it themselves rather than forcing everyone to include it in their download and forcing everyone to devote disk space to the package.

Secondly, there is some confusion around the security issue. There was a time when it was considered an unnecessary exposure to have Java enabled within the web browser - so that web pages could run Java applets i.e. active content. So (I believe) all web browsers have long ago removed Java and no longer support Java applets in web pages. That has nothing to do with whether running Java standalone (outside of the web browser) is insecure. As a general principle though, it isn’t great security to have things installed that you don’t use.

It is of course also not good security to have an outdated version of any software. So if you do have Java installed and it’s an older version then you should install a newer version.

I would say “yes”.

I have it installed on my Librem 5 phone running PureOS. (It doesn’t work very well though, so I hope you are talking about PureOS on a laptop.)

2 Likes

I recommend that you are installing OpenJDK. Just type sudo apt install openjdk-17-jre into the terminal, and you have the version 17 of Java installed.

It’s widely used and 100% Free Software, so it is as safe as normal free software can be.

2 Likes