Today Google demonstrates to us how not to update critical platform software: the latest stable version 35.0.1916.114 contains "a number of fixes and improvements", one of them being dropped support for Oracle's Java plug-in on Linux, as a consequence of discontinuing support for the prerequisite NPAPI (one wonders whether it has anything to do with the ongoing Google vs. Oracle case).
After installing the new version there is absolutely no notification to the user that this functionality, which is essential for some applications (e.g. online banking and some enterprise applications), is no longer available. Although the plug-in symlink is present in the correct location and it wouldn't be difficult to alert about incompatibility, it simply doesn't appear in the about:plugins list. For sure hundreds of hours will be wasted in sum by users trying to troubleshoot this issue on their and following outdated instructions. As of 2014-05-21, there is no replacement Java plug-in for Chrome 35 on Linux available.
For more information see this discussion thread.
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