Oracle seems to be jealous of Microsoft’s ability to confuse the heck out of users. Of late, Java releases seem to come in two distinct versions, with the later version being typically unavailable to most users.

The latest update is a good example: the release announcement talks about Java 8u71 and 8u72, and says that 8u71 contains security fixes. It goes on to say that 8u72 contains the same bug fixes plus ‘additional features’.

If you use the Windows Java Control Panel to update Java on your computer, you’ll end up with Java 8u71. If you go to the main Java download page and choose one of the versions for Windows, again you’ll end up with 8u71. So what’s 8u72 for?

The release notes page for Java 8u71 describes a few non-security bug fixes. Oracle’s Critical Patch Update Advisory for January 2016 shows about eight security vulnerabilities that are addressed in Java 8u71. So if you use Java, you should install 8u71 as soon as possible.