java - List vs List<Object>

Question

Why do we lose type safety when using List and not while using List<Object>? Aren't they basically the same thing?

EDIT: I found that the following gives a compilation error

public class TestClass
{
    static void func(List<Object> o, Object s){
        o.add(s);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){
        func(new ArrayList<String>(), new Integer(1));
    }
}

whereas this doesn't

public class TestClass
{
    static void func(List o, Object s){
        o.add(s);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){
        func(new ArrayList<String>(), new Integer(1));
    }
}

Why?

Answer 1

List is a list of some type you don't know. It could be a List<String>, List<Integer>, etc.
It's effectively equivalent to List<?>, or List<? extends Object>, except that it doesn't document that fact. It's only supported for backwards compatibility.

List<Object> is a list of Objects. Any object of any type can be put inside it, contrary to a List<String>, for example, which only accepts strings.

So no, they're not the same thing.