text: why java mostly used for the web? what's its characteristics?   java is used in many places on the web because it happens to be platform independent.  that means you can create a web page and it doesn't matter if the viewer it using a mac, unix, linux, or windows machine, nor the browser they are using and they can still see all of the functionality of the site.  unlike, for example, flash which requires a plugin that is specific to the browser and the os you are using.