What's the point of the javascript navigator.javaEnabled function?

Question

The navigator object has a javaEnabled function that indicates if the browser has javascript support. This seems to be a little odd:

• If JS is indeed enabled the function will return true, well obviously.
• If JS is disabled it will return <nothing> since it is never run, javaScript is disabled.

I must be missing something here, or is it really that useless this function?

Answer 1

java!= javaScript

navigator.javaEnabled checks for the presence of Java, not JavaScript.

Reference

This must be a relic from the olden days when Java applets were going to be the future of the web...

Answer 2

You missed the fact that it's javaEnabled not javascriptEnabled.

navigator.javaEnabled: Indicates whether the host browser is Java-enabled or not.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/dom/window.navigator