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Java 6

Status End of Life
Release Date 2006-12-12
EOL Date 2018-10-16
Latest Version 6u211
Codename Mustang
Class File Version 50.0
Unicode Version 4.0.0
API Changes Compare to 5 - 1.4 - 1.3 - 1.2 - 1.1 - 1.0
Documentation Release Notes, Language Spec, VM Spec, JavaDoc
SCM

This is the first release after Sun Microsystems open sourced Java SE under the GPLv2 license.

The release primarily added new APIs, for example a full web services stack including several XML processing APIs. A step that was reverted 12 years later, when these APIs were removed again.

New Features

Here are all new features in Java 6 by category. There is also of list of all features of all Java releases.

API

Tools

Should I Upgrade?

Java 6 is end-of-life since 2018-10-16. Unless you have a support contract for this version and a compelling reason to stay on the old version you should definitely upgrade to a newer version with active support.

Please consider upgrading to a current long term support LTS version Java 8, Java 11, Java 17 or Java 21 to rely on a maintained platform and get advantage of the latest features and improvements.

Downloads

Vendor Product License Platform Downloads
Azul Systems Zulu Builds of OpenJDK 6 GPLv2+CE
Oracle Java SE Development Kit 6 Commercial