Adobe releases 64-bit Flash preview for Windows, Mac, Linux

[Emil]

Adobe has released a 64-bit preview version of its Flash player plug-in (codenamed Square) for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Better late than never, right? Make no mistake: Adobe choosing to demo it on the day that Microsoft releases its IE9 Beta is no coincidence, even if it's not an exclusive Windows release.

Adobe emphasizes that Square is designed to take advantage of IE9's hardware accelerated graphics; the software company is claiming performance increases of up to 35 percent in IE9 "compared to previous versions of IE." That's quite a big jump, but we must remember that the number is comparing against old 32-bit versions of IE, so the gain is a combination of the improvements made in IE9 plus the enhancements of the 64-bit Flash player.

In addition to performance, we're hoping the 64-bit plug-in brings security improvements, as Adobe Flash is full of holes. The company warns its users that the release is meant for testing existing content and new platforms for compatibility, so don't expect much stability and use caution when installing Square on production machines.

You can download Square Preview 1 from Adobe Labs. Adobe said its latest Flash player is expected to ship in the first half of next year.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/40287-adobe-releases-64-bit-flash-preview-for-windows-mac-linux.html

 

[dustin_ds3000]

I wish Youtube was all html5

 

[Guest]

Still waiting for Flash on Blackberry. Now that would be useful!

 

[Tekkaraiden]

I'm still waiting for the day Adobe discontinues flash.

 

[SNGX1275]

Flash does suck, I think most people will agree on that. Everyone that hates flash ads would love to see flash die, and flash for video delivery can be circumvented by html5. But that still leaves a ton of flash games out there, so we still need Adobe for that...

Why did it take so long for them to get a 64bit version out? I remember I bought an Athlon64 processor probably 8? years ago. But there have been several years now that Vista and 7 were out (ignoring XP64) that they could have tossed out something. Flash got too comfortable in their total ownership of the Windows platform, and now that html5 is making some waves (with a lot of help from the very public bashing of flash from Jobs) Adobe is scrambling. Silverlight and html5 are going to kill flash, at least thats the concern at Adobe.

 

[tengeta]

All I know is that its pretty sad when Microsoft hasn't updated Silverlight since 2009 and it performs so much better. Too bad it was made by Microsoft and that destroyed its adoption rates.

 

[Per Hansson]

Yea well I was quite happy when the said they discontinued the Linux x64 version
Now they only need to discontinue the Windows x86 & x64 versions
And the Apple MAC OS versions of Flash

And suddenly the world will be a much happier place!
As a sidenote I find it quite tragic that when you install an update for your Adobe Reader you are asked to reboot your computer, anyone wanna place bets on when Flash updates will prompt for the same reboot?
Their coding practices are worse than Microsoft was 15 years ago when they had virtually zero security thinking!

 

[Chazz]

Really? Because I could not imagine browsing the internet without flash. Wait a minute...I'm getting a flashback. BRB while I install the "Techspot" plugin so I can view this website.

How about we just devolve our computing experience some more and have our video players ask us to instal a new codec for every video we download. Those are days that I do not want to go back to.

 

[Emil]

@tengeta, Silverlight was updated to version 4 this year: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/silverlight-4-arrives-on-thursday.ars

 

[mattfrompa]

64 bit Flash already? Why is Adobe in such a rush to push out this plugin when 64 bit isn't even that widespread? Oh wait, it's the year 2010, and will be 2011 upon release. So it's about **** time Adobe....And stop creating a new Reader desktop shortcut every time I have to install updates!

 

[Guest]

Really? I don't think most people know what Flash even does. Most people see Flash as and advertisement system or a video player.

Flash does what HTML doesn't. HTML has always had limitations and Flash was an excellent avenue to overcome those limitations.

You should check out some of the actual Flash applications (or Adobe Air). It's incredible what Flash can do. HTML5 is cool, and can do a lot, but it took 10 years to get just some of the features that Flash has had all along. And Flash is getting better. Adobe plans on introducing 3D to Flash in the next major release. Meaning, you may see awesome 3D games created by Flash.

Look up the features that Flash possesses and there is no doubt that HTML5 is highly limited. It will take decades for HTML to get features, acceleration, and capabilities of Flash.

Don't bash what you don't know about.

 

[DarkCobra]

Flash, HTML5, Silverlight, yada . . . yada . . . yada. I really don't care which one just so long as somebody comes up with something that finally WORKS across most platforms and doesn't crash all the time! Yeah, I know I'm asking for too much . . . LOL.

 

[Guest]

I really don't see what's the problem with the stabilty if I've been using for a long time now the last beta that Adobe discontinues early this year, that plugin never get an update.

 

[Archean]

I quit using Adobe Reader light years ago, so I don't have to put out with the rubbish they throw out in this area at least............. I wish I could get rid of flash as well, it seems that it is trying to outdo MS with regard to security issues anyway.