Certainly looks like they got the message. I see a pkg installer now too.

Rich already posted about this, but on a new thread:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=13703

Definitely seems like they got the message loud and clear. I'm not sure if the .app installer or the promotion of Ask.com bothered me more, but no matter - I'm glad someone at Oracle came to their senses and reversed course. And I hope whoever came up with the .app/Ask bundle idea got an earful on never doing that again.

Thanks to @Ball for the links - I certainly posted some feedback, and clearly many others did as well. Perplexing decision, but at least they took the feedback on-board and sorted it.

That's more than I can say for our basketball umpires tonight.

I also would not be surprised if the link above posted by @maser had something to do with the reversal as well-
http://www.brunerd.com/blog/2015/03/06/java-8-update-40-installer-app-fun/
That's some pungent swiss cheese security there! To note, the new installer is a signed package. I never checked to see if the other embedded one was also signed, but since the .app wrapper wasn't checking the signature, that was bad news. The reversal should put that to rest though.

Well it didn't last long....seems to be back to an .app installer off Java.com today! Must be having some inside rumblings! See https://derflounder.wordpress.com and also just checked Java.com myself and it is indeed back to a .app! Frustrating! I wonder whats going on inside of Oracle about this the past few days...lol
Keep emailing them!!

Has anyone tested the Java 8 Update 45 that was released yesterday?

My experience was that I couldn't get the "Show Package Contents" to appear. However the installer didn't install any of the garbage detailed above. It was just a clean install captured by Composer.

The latest release doesn't use the .app installer. Again referring to an earlier post in this thread:

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=13567#responseChild80832

@gskibum so far it looks fine to me. Oracle returned to a .pkg installer which worked as expected. @rtrouton update script works great and detected the new version based on the smart group.

Same experience here, neither the pre or postinstall scrips in the package have any reference to any of the Sponsor garbage. That said, I cannot wait to ditch Java entirely.