adobe flash player
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Adobe's Flash Player 10.1 beta GPU acceleration tested, documented
We know you don't actually care about 99 percent of the contents of the latest Flash Player update. What you really want to know is whether those new 1080p YouTube streams will run smoothly on your machine thanks to the newly implemented graphics card video acceleration. AnandTech has come to our collective aid on that one, with an extensive testing roundup of some of the more popular desktop and mobile GPU solutions. NVIDIA's ION scored top marks, with "almost perfect" Hulu streaming (see table above), though Anand and crew encountered some issues with ATI's chips and Intel's integrated GMA 4500 MHD, which they attribute to the new Flash Player's beta status. On the OS front, although Linux and Mac OS are not yet on the official hardware acceleration beneficiary list, the wily testers found marked improvements in performance under OS X. It seems, then, that Adobe has made good on its partnership with NVIDIA, and made ION netbooks all the more scrumptious in the process, while throwing a bone to the Mac crowd, but leaving the majority of users exercising the virtue of patience until the finalized non-beta Player starts making the rounds in a couple of months. Hit the read link for further edification.
Snow Leopard ships with old version of Flash - great for hackers, not so much for the rest of us
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]
Adobe Flash Player 9 updated
Adobe has posted version 9.0.28.0 of its ubiquitous Flash Player browser plugin. The update includes many fixes and improvements, including Windows Vista support (hey - Adobe even beat the Zune to that!), support for full screen mode in web players and a security update addressing the HTTP Header Injection Vulnerabilities, as described Security Bulletin APSB06-18.A long list of other fixes are included in the Release Notes, which you really should read since Adobe went through all that trouble to type them up.There are two installers - one for Intel-based Macs (Universal Binary) and a leaner one for PPC-based Macs (requires the Mac OS X 10.1 or later). The PPC version supports Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, AOL, Opera, and Safari browsers, while the Intel version reportedly only supports Firefox, Safari, and Opera.
