Snow Leopard ships with old version of Flash - great for hackers, not so much for the rest of us
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted September 3rd 2009 2:31PM
posted September 3rd 2009 2:31PM
As we've seen, for many people the migration to Snow Leopard has been eventful (to say the least). Even if you've been spared most of the growing pains, you'll want to make note of this next item: According to the kids at Adobe, the initial release of Mac OS X 10.6 includes an earlier version of Adobe Flash Player (10.0.23.1), necessitating an upgrade to 10.0.32.18 if you want to take advantage of the enhanced security the latter provides. What's more, even if your plug-in was up-to-date, an upgrade to Snow Leopard will downgrade your Flash Player version -- so much for auto-magically downloading the most recent updates when you install the OS, eh? Our feeling is this: if you're including Flash Player in the OS, you'd better update that as well. As Daily Tech points out, Adobe products (especially Flash) are a favorite of hackers and malcontents everywhere, so if you're serious about security you'll want to get your hands on the update ASAP. And as always, the read link is a terrific place to start.
[Via Daily Tech]
[Via Daily Tech]
@ Keith
LOL, from what you said it is very clear that you have zero clue about any of the points that you think you are talking about.
OS X has incrementally upgraded its system as stepping stones to transition a step at a time from the legacy technologies from the OS 9 era. At the same time, upgrades have been introducing modern and efficient foundation blocks and open-standards technologies that enable the Mac as a superior development platform when compared against Windows. Here are a few:
With Snow Leopard, all 32bit-compatible Macs sold since 2007 (with Intel's Santa Rosa) become fully integrated 100% 64-bit computers while no 32-bit editions of Windows can run 64-bit apps, even on 64-bit capable hardware. That means Windows users are forced to chose between compatibility (Win7 32bit) or performance (Win7 64bit), OS X uses don't have to make that choice, we get both. Snow Leopard's ability to run 64-bit code and virtual memory is not tied to the amount of addressable system RAM, thus capable of running not only in full 64bit mode but can also natively run 32bit legacy device drivers and kernel extensions. In contrast, a separate 64-bit version of Windows is required to run 64-bit Windows apps on 64-bit x86 PCs, and any 32-bit apps have to run in a special compatibility environment. There is no slick mechanism for deploying bundles of mixed code that "just work" on both architectures, and 64-bit Windows itself lacks the ability to run on either type of PC. Also, OS X is not forced to split the address space half/half like Windows 7 so Snow Leopard achieves much better performance by moving the Kernel above the 4GB address area and giving it its own space thereby giving 64bit apps get their own space above the Kernel and 32bit apps below the Kernel.
Another core foundation is Apple's creation and integration of their OpenCL tech into Snow Leopard. This allow the CPU to offload work into graphics processors and make its huge power available for general-purpose computing. All the major computer tech firms are supporters of this Open Source effort at the Khronos group (Intel, AMD, Nvidia, ARM, IBM, Nokia, Samsung, etc, etc). OpenCL is now the one parallel programming language with the most support in the industry, thus throwing a wrench at the proprietary pest of DirectX 11 that Microsoft is trying to shove down the market's throat. In fact, even Microsoft will have to support OpenCL. The great thing is that this technology is integrated into Xcode dev tools and programmers can deploy it from the MacPro and xServe all the way down to the iPhone and iPod Touch.
I can go on talking about Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch to maximize multi-core CPU threading, native Exchange support (no version of Windows has this), Apple's HTTP adaptive video streaming, cumulative progress delivered by open source projects such as WebKit (Safari and Chrome), LLVM, and CUPS (all of which are openly maintained by Apple), etc, but you get the point I hope:
Snow Leopard is all about shoring up the Mac’s modern operating system with the latest advancements; Windows 7 is all about trying to resell Vista to XP users who didn’t want it the first time. Funny thing is, Microsoft already ceded HP the rights to continue offering XP to business users!
Talking about dealing with reality, look in the mirror dumbass.
@ Keith
Lets try curing you of just a bit of your severe ignorance on the Virus issue:
You only regurgitate the same garbage every other MS fanboy makes, that Macs have no viruses because of their small market share. You are absolutely wrong, here is why:
In the days of OS 8 and OS 9, Macs had viruses, yet their market share was about 4 to 5%. These days Macs are just below 10% market share, yet OS X has ZERO viruses. Explain that one big boy. Also, if your claim was correct, that the level of viruses is directly proportional to market share then it would have to mean that Windows gets most of the viruses while OS X gets a few of the viruses. But guess what, it does not explain why there are zero viruses in OS X. You fail.
When an OS has severe vulnerabilities, like Windows does, then those vulnerabilities get exploited quite easily in the form of viruses and malware. OS X's vulnerabilities are nowhere near as huge as Windows' and the proof is that ever since OS X came out 9 years ago (in 2000) no one has been able to create a successful OS virus. And before you run your stupid mouth again crying about how come there is A/V software for the Mac, here is Symantec's Product Manager Mike Romo talking about OS X viruses and what Mac A/V is really about:
"I’m not going to advertise that we protect against stuff that doesn’t exist. We do protect against vulnerabilities though."
http://community.norton.com/norton/blog/article?blog.id=npb1&message.id=54&jump=true#M54
So since you think you know something that Symantec does not, care to tell us what security software company you work for? Oh that's right, you don't. You got pwnd dumb-ass.
Oh well, this won't be news any longer as apparently the Flash version will be updated in 10.6.1 (if you're too lazy updating it yourself).