Oracle just announced a huge batch of Critical Patch Updates, including 37 updates for Java.

The updates affect all supported versions of Java, including Java 7 (7u55) and the recently-released Java 8 (8u5).

Oracle has clarified their position on the adoption of Java 8 in a special FAQ for version 8. According to that page, “The new release of Java is first made available to developers to ensure no major problems are found before we make it available on the java.com website for end users to download.”

So until Oracle decides that Java 8 is ready for general use, the main Java download page will still offer Java 7 as the ‘most recent’ version. Java 8 can be downloaded from the Oracle Java SE downloads page.

We recommend installing the latest version of Java 7 (7u55) unless you’re interested in testing your Java applications with Java 8, in which case you should install Java 8 Update 5.