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Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
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Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'

By | September 15, 2010, 10:49am PDT

Summary: Adobe launched a preview release of its “Square” Flash Player, which is designed for 64-bit operating systems and supports Internet Explorer 9.

Adobe on Wednesday launched a preview release of its “Square” Flash Player, which is designed for 64-bit operating systems and supports Internet Explorer 9.

In a labs post, Adobe said the preview is available on Linux, Mac OS and Windows.

The company said:

We have made this preview available so that users can test existing content and new platforms for compatibility and stability. Because this is a preview version of Flash Player, we don’t expect it to be as stable as a final release version of Flash Player. Use caution when installing Flash Player “Square” on production machines.

Regarding IE 9, which also surfaced today, Adobe said the new Flash Player is designed to take advantage of IE 9’s hardware accelerated graphics capability. Adobe said its latest player is expected to ship in the first half of 2011.

Related: Internet Explorer 9 beta review: Microsoft reinvents the browser

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Topics

Adobe Systems Inc., Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, Macromedia Flash Player, Web Browsers, 64-Bit, Operating Systems, Internet, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Software, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
FAULKNE 13th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.
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All I can say...
JT82 15th Sep 2010
Is its about FREEKING time! Now just ensure there is Windows, Linux, and Mac support and all is well happy (Yes I know the beta for 64bit flash has been floating for linux but its still quite buggy in some scenarios).
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
blueskip 16th Sep 2010
@JT82 You said a mouthful. This is WAY overdue!!! Like TWO FREAKING YEARS OVERDUE!
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
Matt_Fabb@... 15th Sep 2010
Adobe give a big of an explanation why it took so long to get a 64-bit Flash Player in their FAQ:

"There are a number of significant changes that are required to move from 32-bit to 64-bit architecture. It?s not just a simple recompile. For example, Flash Player relies on many code libraries for functionality like audio and video playback or hardware acceleration. If a library that Flash Player depends isn?t available for 64-bit, we need to rewrite code for new libraries. Flash Player is used to create powerful, beautiful applications and content, but it can also play back a wide array of media, ranging from video clips from Flash Player 6 to the latest and greatest H.264 video streaming live with hardware acceleration. To do so natively in 64-bit, all of the many library dependencies must be available or rewritten for 64-bit."

Basically Adobe licenses a lot of old code libraries, mainly for media that weren't available in 64-bit, meaning they had to re-write all of these libraries themselves.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
RelaxWalk 15th Sep 2010
@Matt_Fabb@...
Thanks for this info. Now that makes sense. I was wondering about that too (why it took that long to produce a 64 bits player) . Because I thought it would be as "simple" as a recompile. Still there is no excuse they took that long.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
rengek 16th Sep 2010
@RelaxWalk
Kinda hard to justify a 64 bit player until there is a large segment of 64 bit machines no?

A 'simple' recompile of 32bit code to 64 bit just means that the code will run on 64 bit machines. But you are still using 32 bit internals. You're not taking advantage of the other 32 bits. To do that, you need a bit more redesigning. May or may not be complex but that is entirely dependent on the product.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
Loverock Davidson 15th Sep 2010
Agreed, its about time. Gotta test this one out when I get home. I'll give it what I like to call "the porn test" and let you guys know how well it works.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
JT82 15th Sep 2010
@Loverock Davidson Thanks for the nightmares LD....
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
Loverock Davidson 15th Sep 2010
@JT82
Come on now, you want this new version tested or not? I like to think of it as a good way to test. If it passes the porn test then its good.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
Gis Bun 15th Sep 2010
You mean we could be waiting ANOTHER 9 months for a 64-bit version of Flash? Can't wait for HTML 5!
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
rengek Updated - 16th Sep 2010
@Gis Bun

I wish people would understand that HTML 5 IS NOT A stand alone product. You don't go download HTML 5 and run stuff on it. Stop equating Flash and HTML 5 as interchangeable standalone tools. They are not the same thing. HTML 5 is a coding standard, its not a video player that you buy, its not a browser that you download, its not an operating system. You write software, coding it to HTML 5 abilities.

There is no reason that you couldn't have a version of flash that uses HTML 5 capabilities.

And to your note complaining about 9 months for the 64-bit flash. Do you think all the major players will settle their issues with HTML 5 in the next 9 months?? Doubtful. They can't even agree on a video standard for html 5.
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Less stable?
LiquidLearner 15th Sep 2010
Is that supposed to be a joke? Flash is probably the most unstable add-on for any browser on any platform already.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
blueskip 16th Sep 2010
@LiquidLearner You're nuts.
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why do people have issues with flash?
rengek 16th Sep 2010
I really don't get it. I personally have 4 active computers at home and I manage dozens of machines at work. Nooooone of them have issues with flash to the point of crashing machines, reboots etc. Either I am very very lucky or there is just a small minority out there that is shooting off their mouth and making everyone believe there is a major catastrophe going on.

The one thing that I do for all the machines I manage is that instead of just buying new machines directly, I generally order more memory fore everyone before I do a cycle of new machines. And all of my own personal PCs have a ton of memory. I'm a bit of a nazi and I make sure desktop support keeps these machines, tuned, essential software updated. To date, I have not heard a single PC user complain about flash.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
techwan2b 17th Sep 2010
Just 2 year overdue? People have been asking for this since the release of 64-bit XP in 2003. I've seen posts dated 2005 where Adobe states that they are "working on it" and it will "be released when it's ready." I find it difficult to believe that a company the size of Adobe couldn't dedicate a couple of programmers to this and compeletely rewrite Flash from scratch in a couple of years time if it really wanted to. As someone quite accurately said at the time... "It will be released when it's ready" is still the official statement of Duke Nuke'm Forever. Meanwhile Adobe is pumping out versions of Flash for cellphones I've never even heard of. After over 7 years I was starting to think that company policy was not to program for 64-bit until 32-bit programs were no longer supported on Windows.
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Duke Nukem Forever
Michael Alan Goff 18th Sep 2010
@techwan2b

has a realease date of 2011. Don't know when, but that's the year it's supposed to be released.
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Working well with FFx64
bobtran 18th Sep 2010
I have been testing the new Adobe flashplayer square with Minefield x64 (ver: 4.0b7pre). Works well haven't experienced any crashes yet (Did crash with 4.0b6pre). It's about time but ATTABOY Adobe.....you did good, it only took you three years. Plenty of action on the x64 front for the last 5 years so it really isn't that new of an idea.
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At LAST!!
Viking.87 Updated - 19th Dec 2010
Hey guys!

They have released a beta version! Works fine for me, using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and Namoroka 3.6.3 web browser
Gotta love 64-bit ;D

Link to web browser:
http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com/Firefox:Download

Link to flash player:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_square.html

Happy Holidays!
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
janfox 1st Mar 2011
Okay Adobe, you are the professionals. Keeping programs up to date, with the new systems that come out, is YOUR JOB!
Quit making excuses about Adobe Flash Player.

I have Windows 7, with a 64 bit operating system, and use Firefox. I'm not interested in trying the 'Square' PREVIEW release, as I'm not a techie, and don't know anything about how to help you tweak it. I need the REAL thing.
Please advise what other options there are for me and others in the same situation.

Thanks.
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RE: Adobe previews 64-bit Flash Player 'Square'
FAULKNE 13th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.

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