Java multiplatform installers are sooooo 90s.

Published on Feb 23 2007

Increasingly, a great number of our InstallBuilder customers have been InstallShield refugees. Desktop application development has never been Java’s forte, but one of my early experiences with multiplatform installation tools was the now defunct InstallShield Multiplatform. The tool had a lot of shortcomings, but what really irritated me was the really ugly Java AWT interface that made us Linux users feel like we were second-class citizens.

Because of those early experiences, at BitRock we always strive to offer you a truly native installation experience. For example, on Unix we provide both Gtk and Qt-based frontends to our installation tool. In addition to being pretty, by virtue of not requiring the bundling of a JRE, our installers are also lean and mean, as we will comment on future posts.