14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe Flash may be taking a lot of heat and it's not exactly everyone's favorite application. Warranted or not, Flash content on the web is ubiquitous and that's not about to change any time soon.
One thing that is changing though is support for 64-bit software. 64-bit versions of the three major platforms, Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, are becoming increasingly popular.
Unfortunately, software makers haven't been too eager to switch to the new architecture and Adobe is no exception.
Finally, that is changing, Adobe has just released a preview build of the Adobe Flash Player, dubbed "Square," which brings 64-bit support on all platforms as well as some enhancements specific to the just-released IE9 Beta.
"Today we’re making available a preview of Adobe® Flash® Player that we’re calling 'Square.' This preview includes support for two new areas, namely enhanced support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Beta and native 64-bit support for all major desktop operating systems including Linux, Mac, and Windows," Adobe's Paul Betlem announced.
It's no coincidence that Adobe chose today to unveil the experimental Flash Player. Everyone is hyped about IE9 and the big touted feature is hardware acceleration.
Adobe has been working with Microsoft to make Flash work with the acceleration capabilities of IE9. Note that Flash Player 10.1 already features hardware acceleration support for video decoding and 3D graphics.
With the IE9 integration, this is extended to include support for everything else, notably 2D graphics, which is used extensively in Flash content.
"Flash Player 'Square' leverages the new GPU support available with Internet Explorer 9 Beta to deliver a faster and more responsive user experience," Betlem added.
"In our internal testing, we’ve seen significant improvements in Flash Player graphics performance – exceeding 35% in Internet Explorer 9 Beta compared to Flash Player running in previous versions of IE," he said.
Adobe Flash Player "Square" is available for download here.