No doubt during the day to day use of your computer you have pondered the existence of of programs you never knew you had or ever remember installing. What probably brought this group of applications to your attention is the nagging requests for permission from you to install yet another update.

Before you head to the gun cabinet and consider putting a bullet through the computer screen, let's understand the meaning of two popular programs that you more than likely have installed and more importantly why they appear to update so much.

Java is a programming language used by developers to create of some of your favourite Computer, iPhone, and Android applications (amongst many other world uses). Without Java installed to manage these applications they simply couldn't run. One of the criticisms of Java according to Wikipedia, is the number of security vulnerabilities. This means someone with the ambition and means to do harm to you or your computer could potentially do it through a weakness in the Java programming code. This is one important reason the Java updater appears so often and why you should participate in the 2 minutes Java needs to update itself.

Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages you visit. Despite the versatility of Flash to provide an interactive experience to your web browsing, it also has it criticisms particularly its (over)use by advertisers which can feel intrusive or annoying. Fortunately the positives outweigh the negative aspects and 90%+ computer users globally have this technology installed displaying animation on their favourite websites.

Like Java however, Flash is prone to its own bugs and glitches and can be the target of hackers as a way of penetrating your computer for malicious intent. If you see it needing an update, it will be over quickly (maybe 1 minute or less) and is also recommended.

See? 3 minutes every now and then is not a big deal!