There are a number of frameworks that require to be able to "wrap" the JDK's built-in URLStreamHandler's. Such a method, as below or similar, could expose the built-in handler's to support this use-case.

URL.java:

 /**
     * Returns a URLStreamHandlerFactory capable of creating instances of the
     * system's built-in URLStreamHandlers, for the given protocol.
     *
     * @param protocol the protocol
     * @return the factory
     */
    public static URLStreamHandlerFactory builtinStreamHandlerFactory(String protocol) {
        return defaultFactory;
    }