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Java
,Security Baseline
Despite the page title, this page is for the Java 2 Standard Edition Runtime Environment, rather than the full-blown Java or Java Software Developer Kit / SDK. This is more commonly known as the Java Runtime Environment or JRE. The JRE provides an ability for programs written in the Java programming language to be launched from a web page and run in a web browser. There are many variations on Sun's (now Oracle's) JRE, in particular this page is for the Oracle Java Runtime Environment, previously known as the Sun Java Runtime Environment.
For security reasons you are encouraged to upgrade to the latest 'baselineSecurity Baseline' release, this which is the last released version with security fixes, which may not be the latest released version as updates are released without security fixes. Bug Fixes of the Update Release Notes under each release: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/ReleaseNotes.html. However, if you're running JRE 6 Update 10 or onwards and haven't disabled automatic updates then JRE should automatically be downloading and installing updates.
The stable version of the JRE offered by Oracle is that which is made available from java.com. Newer versions are made available elsewhere by Oracle for developers to test against their software. That isn't to say that once a stable version is available it will only be available from java.com, it's just that this is a useful way to judge the stable version. For example currently JRE 7 is available but the version offered from java.com is 6.0u27. If you deploy JRE 7 you may find it incompatible with the software that requires it, for example LibreOffice 3.4.2 is incompatible with the initial release of JRE 7.0.