Apple on Tuesday rolled out two Java updates, one for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and another for OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the latter offering improved security by uninstalling the Apple-provided Java applet plug-in from all web browsers.

Tuesday's update for OS X Lion and Mountain Lion goes further and removes the Apple-built Java plug-in from all web browsers, forcing users to download the latest version curated directly by Oracle.

The move is the next step in Apple's plan to deprecate maintenance of its own Java runtime, which was announced in 2010. Apple subsequently dropped Java from OS X 10.7 Lion and placed the burden of future development on the OpenJDK community.

Both of today's updates are continuations of patches issued in June and September, which brought Java SE 6 to newer runtime versions, and disabled the plug-in by default upon installation. Those updates also configured the plug-in to deactivate when associated applets were not run for an extended period of time.

Java for OS X 2012-006

From the release notes:

Java for OS X 2012-006 1.0

Java for OS X 2012-006 delivers improved security, reliability, and compatibility by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_37.

This update uninstalls the Apple-provided Java applet plug-in from all web browsers. To use applets on a web page, click on the region labeled "Missing plug-in" to go download the latest version of the Java applet plug-in from Oracle.

Please quit any web browsers and Java applications before installing this update.

Apple's update for Lion and Mountain Lion weighs in at 67.2B and can be downloaded via the Mac App Store or Apple's Support Downloads webpage.

Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 11

From the release notes:

About Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 11

Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 11 delivers improved security, reliability, and compatibility by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_37.

On systems that have not already installed Java for Mac OS X 10.6 update 9 or later, this update will configure web browsers to not automatically run Java applets. Java applets may be re-enabled by clicking the region labeled "Inactive plug-in" on a web page. If no applets have been run for an extended period of time, the Java web plug-in will deactivate.

Please quit any web browsers and Java applications before installing this update.