Oracle and Ask may have parted ways, but Java security updates are still seen as good marketing opportunities for search providers looking to increase market share.

Remember the Ask search engine? Oracle sure does—and by extension, so do Java users. Oracle has taken the practice of bundling useless add-ons and toolbars with legitimate software to new ...

Oracle's Java plugin for browsers is a notoriously insecure product. Over the past 18 months, the company has released 11 updates, six of them containing critical security fixes. With each update ...

Attention Java users: Your long national nightmare of avoiding the Ask.com toolbar is over, replaced by the slightly less terrifying prospect of Yahoo defaults. As The Wall Street Journal reports ...

Why Oracle bundles a toolbar with Java at all remains a mystery but the good news is it can be suppressed in future installations. Java is a language that is loved by some, hated by some. It didn ...

It has long been known that installing Java meant having to keep an eye out for that pesky adware Ask Toolbar, which would be selected… ...

Worse, the Ask toolbar option is enabled by default when you’re installing or updating Java—you have to actively uncheck the boxes to prevent your computer from filling up with Ask’s sneakware.

Java is the newly crowned "king of foistware." Read the whole story ...

Java’s shady bundled adware is no longer a Windows exclusive, as Oracle has started sneaking the Ask.com toolbar into the Mac version.

REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 10, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced a search distribution deal with Sun Microsystems Inc. to offer the MSN Toolbar, powered by Microsoft Live Search, to U.S.-based ...