OOPS

The JDBC type 4 driver, also known as the Direct to Database Pure Java Driver, is a database driver implementation that converts JDBC calls directly into a vendor-specific database protocol.
Written completely in Java, type 4 drivers are thus platform independent. They install inside the Java Virtual Machine of the client. This provides better performance than the type 1 and type 2 drivers as it does not have the overhead of conversion of calls into ODBC or database API calls. Unlike the type 3 drivers, it does not need associated software to work.
As the database protocol is vendor specific, the JDBC client requires separate drivers, usually vendor supplied, to connect to different types of databases.

Advantages
Completely implemented in Java to achieve platform independence.
These drivers don’t translate the requests into an intermediary format (such as ODBC).
The client application connects directly to the database server. No translation or middleware layers are used, improving performance.
The JVM can manage all aspects of the application-to-database connection; this can facilitate debugging.

Disadvantages
Drivers are database specific, as different database vendors use widely different (and usually proprietary) network protocols.

Type-1 driver (or) JDBC-ODBC bridge driver
Type-2 driver (or) Native-API driver
Type-3 driver (or) Network Protocol driver
Type-4 driver (or) Thin driver