How can I fix Java and Chrome on OSX to get Mindterm java applet working again?

Background

Beginning with OS X Lion, Apple no longer provides a Java runtime environment as part of their operating system. Oracle provides a 64-bit Java package which can be installed as an add-on to OS X, but Google Chrome is a 32-bit browser. This means that Java applets are effectively unsupported under Chrome.

To use SSH with Chrome on OS X, you have three options:

1. Change your RightScale SSH preferences to use ssh:// protocol links instead of using Java
2. Change your RightScale SSH preferences to use a Java Web Start application (which is downloaded, not embedded into Chrome)
3. Revert to the older (Java 6) runtime provided by Apple, which contains 32-bit binary support and will restore Java applet compatibility with Chrome

• RightScale recommends using options 1 or 2 because they are resilient to future changes that Apple may make to their Java support, and avoid relying on the deprecated Apple-provided runtime. However, if options 1 and 2 are unsuitable, this article points to an Apple article that explains how to accomplish option 3: revert OSX back to Apple's Java 6 and retain applet-based SSH functionality.

Answer

The article is located here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5559

Note that this is a third party article and isn't recommended, tested or supported by RightScale in any way, but may work for you. Also note that the above process is reversible if needed, so you can restore full Java 7 functionality if needed.