Java based applications

[eccoana]

How can I detect if there are Java based applications on my computer?

[DeltaMac]

Are you trying to decide if you can simply uninstall Java from your computer?
I'd say that quite a few folks could do that without any problems.
One point of view for that: http://betanews.com/2012/09/03/you-dont-need-java/
There's a little bit of description of the types of apps that may still be java-based, or use Java.
Or, you could simply remove Java from your system, and see if that affects anything that you use. Chances are pretty good that you will not ever notice that java is gone.

[chabig]

Search for files with extension .jar

[hayne]

It is possible to wrap up .jar files into regular .app files using a developer utility supplied by Apple. And there are other ways of packaging Java applications. So I don't know an easy way off hand to determine if an application uses Java - except of course by uninstalling (or otherwise disabling) the Java runtime and then trying various applications to see which ones fail.

[benwiggy]

Major software that requires JAVA includes Adobe Creative Suite; OpenOffice and NeoOffice; Finale music notation. Some hardware control software, like network products from Cisco and some printer software also requires it. (NeoOffice has nearly phased out Java-reliance.)

As I've written elsewhere here, the vulnerabilities in Java currently make your computer susceptible to an attack from running java apps within a browser on a malicious website.

As there are not many (but still some) websites that use java apps legitimately, removing the Java plug-in from your browser is a good idea to eliminate the threat. (Or simply uncheck the "Enable Java" setting in Safari Preferences.)

You do not need to uninstall the whole Java package from your Mac: this does not really provide any greater level of security. (Apart from preventing you from downloading malicious java apps and running them.) And if you do have apps that require Java, then they won't work, and you'll need to find alternatives.

In any case, despite Oracle's so far woeful attempts at patching these vulnerabilities, they are likely to get fixed eventually.

In short:
Java in the browser: DANGER! Disable Java immediately!
Java on the Desktop: Meh.

So you could uninstall Java and save a bit of space on your hard drive, and you may not need it for an apps that you have. However, there are all sorts of things in an OS X installation which are probably not used by most people -- python, Ruby, even the bash shell, etc -- which could potentially run malicious programs.

As ever, it's also worth mentioning that JavaScript is NOT Java.