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still Adobe Flash Player version 10.3.183.10
the Release Candidate from the labs is currently the only thing available in version 11 flavour. come to think of it
its the only thing present in an x64 flavour as almost every OS on the planet has switched to 64 bit while adobe quietly drags its heels
and rapidly advancing technologies like HTML5 step quickly past it.

how much longer before we transition from evaluating adobe flash releases in terms of 'wow thats neat' to 'no one cares.'

Flash is a resource intensive security nightmare with a parent company so detatched from customers and industry it occasionally stops
commenting entirely on the state of patches and bugfixes that in many cases are a detriment to their entire business model.

It's essentially a beta, but 64bit Flash for windows - http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

And the fact that there was no flash support in Windows 7 (x64) wasn't due to windows not supporting plugins, it was due to Adobe not supporting Windows x64.

Do I have the guarantee with Debian backports? Does it get as much "love" as the main branch? I sincerely doubt it.

Did you realize that we moved from backports.org to backports.debian.org about 9 to 12 months ago (sorry, I can't remember the exact date)? Did you understand that it means that backports are now an official channel, on which you can submit bugs? That also mean that now, we consider security issues in backports as well. That's a lot of a difference compared to one year ago.

Turned out it was a PDF with a form and the built in PDF reader (evince, I think) didn't handle that. At least, I could remotely login and install Adobe Reader from the repository. I know Ubuntu has it. Debian might in the non-free section, but I'm not sure.

You didn't install Adobe PDF reader from the Ubuntu repository, because it's simply not there. You can make a search on http://packages.ubuntu.com/ if you don't trust me. What you did, I am guessing, is that you used the "software center" which shows some non-Ubuntu repositories. But anyway, even in Debian, you could have download it directly from Adobe: http://get.adobe.com/reader/

Still, for me, lacking compiz[...]

We do have Compiz, simply it's not there by default because not everyone runs with a fancy 3D card. About the "polished themes", frankly, I agree. The graphics in Debian just sux. We did some kind of competition, and there were not so many contributors, so finally, the space-fun theme won. It's funny, but not exactly very pretty, and this really is crap. Many Debian Developer regret this, but we simply don't have skilled enough people that want to contribute. I wish we had some very good designers... :/ About windows 7, frankly, when I need windows (which isn't often, mostly for my stupid bank here), I use XP, and it is running the win2k theme, because I hate the new ones which are anyway slowing down the system.

As for the language, well, I've setup some Debian system fully in Chinese, and I didn't have any issue doing that. So I don't get what the problem is, really. Even in Ubuntu, I had to spend some time to install the needed fonts which were not there by default, add a correct input method (namely, sunpinyin, because otherwise, it sux).

I've ran Ubuntu in few desktops, liked it for a while, after let's say 2008/2009, it started to have issues. During that same time, Debian got better, and especially since Squeeze, where the multimedia system now is rock solid, thanks to the huge effort of the multimedia team. There's still couples of issues (like it took me a long time to figure out I needed to add snd-seq-virmidi / snd-seq-midi-event / snd-seq-midi-emul in my /etc/modules.conf to be able to use jackd correctly), but that's only when you do advanced things (I don't think lots of people need jackd). All together, I'd advise people to try AGAIN Debian, since it got a way better on the desktop since Squeeze. I've also seen the latest LXDE, and frankly, I'm tempted to switch to it, since frankly, Gnome sux (it's incredible to have to wait few seconds when you double click on a folder when I have a multi-gigahertz processor).

Sorry, link to Alchemy .
If you want native speed in any browser and the benefits of C++, then stop your moaning and give it a try....

We are sold "business" laptops that are supposed to be our road warriors, that have gamer graphics cards in them for some idiotic reason

Because PC makers want to sell you games through their online store to play on break. Or because a lot of businesses rely on 3D design. Or because more and more applications benefit from GPU acceleration, such as Adobe Photoshop since CS4.

software is pushed to interpreted languages

Because except for mass-market software, developer time is more expensive than runtime.

...Van Pelt, from "Peanuts", sitting out in the pumpkin patch every Halloween, convinced that his sincerity will be rewarded by a visit from the Great Pumpkin.

I didn't think that anyone was seriously predicting the "Year of the Linux Desktop" anymore, which ran its course as a failed prediction about five years ago, and became tiresome even as a joke a couple years after that.

The flat line that Adobe cited in giving up on AIR for Linux tells the story of Desktop Linux's stagnation over the last few years pretty succinctly, and there were plenty of recessionary years in the last decade that should already have provided ample opportunity for cost-conscious users to switch. Hasn't happened, and there is no plausible reason to think it will now.

A standard implies that a specification or protocol is available to 3rd parties which is incorrect.

I still wouldn't necessarily call it a standard, but your assertion that there are no specifications available to 3rd parties is wrong.

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/swf/pdf/swf_file_format_spec_v10.pdf

I absolutely hate Flash for several reasons, but do you mean these specifications are not open? http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html

Providing Microsoft Bing on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 devices is pathetic? you're absolutely right.

By the way, would you like to install Google Chrome and make it your default browser when you install Google Earth?
http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html

How about installing Google Chrome when you install Adobe Flash?
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Perhaps installing Google Chrome when you install Piriform CCleaner?
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard

I don't think there's anything particularly 'pathetic' about it. They could have made it possible (without dev unlocking and mucking about) to change the default search engine when pressing the hardware search button within the IE environment, though, I agree. Then again, there's plenty of Android devices that are locked to Google / Bing / Yahoo and also can't be changed as the cell provider locked that down.

On the up side, all of the devices let you put a shortcut to Google right on the home screen, and Google even made a WP7 google search app that does pretty much the same thing but provides a nicer icon - just as Microsoft offer a Bing search app for Android.

In the EULA it says: 2.3 Server Use. [] No other network use is permitted, including, but not limited to use of the Software, either directly or through commands, data or instructions, from or to a Computer not part of your Internal Network, for Internet or web hosting services or by any user not licensed to use this copy of the Software under a valid license from Adobe [...]

How am I supposed to trust Americans Elect 2012 when they illegally embed fonts onto their website (eg. this page, this font)? I'm not trying to be a troll, but if they're not doing their homework for a freaking website (or hiring the right web design firm to do it for them), how do I know they're going to succeed in the political landscape?

I'm not a big fan of Flash on the web, but it is absolutely untrue that Flash doesn't support screen readers. http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/flash/best_practices.html

What is true is that it is possible to build websites in either HTML or Flash that don't support screen readers.

Yes, 64-bit Firefox has been available for ages. I've been running it since SLAMD64 11 and Slackware64 13.x. The beta 64-bit Adobe Flash has been around since then as well in one preview form or another. I am currently using Flash 10.3 beta x86_64 with Slackware64 13.37 - with no significant issues. The new Flash 11 is now beta with full GNU/Linux x86_64 support. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplatformruntimes/flashplayer11/

i saw this about a year ago and stopped worrying about audio from my gentoo machine: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguinswf/files/penguinswf/linuxaudio.png

now i just use my phone or win7 running laptop when i want to hear audio.

Didn't take too long: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

I just downloaded it from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html without applying to any program

That's because you downloaded a beta version.
To get the release version, you have to apply to a pre-release program, which means it isn't really released, now is it?

And yet the release date on the aforementioned URL is July 13th, 2011. Last I checked today was July 13th, 2011. *checks again* Yup, still July 13th, 2011.

I just downloaded it from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html without applying to any program

That's because you downloaded a beta version.
To get the release version, you have to apply to a pre-release program, which means it isn't really released, now is it?

I just downloaded it from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html without applying to any program. But anyway, I was using a beta version of Flash 10.3 for 64-bit Linux before, and this is just a new beta version.

I just went to Adobe and it ain't there. Only version 9.x for Linux 32-bit...

Where is a link to actual Adobe source for this??? After some looking around, a Beta release,

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

Why isn't this linked in the summary??

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html
Still looks good though should should be nicer than the preview.

I have the native 64 bit Flash plugin I can tell you that it is not THAT smooth and accelerated on many Intel GPUs. You may wish to qualify your statement with some links (the PenguinSWF blog talks about the issues). On the same machine that struggles with certain Youtube Flash videos on Linux, the performance is fine under Windows. I believe you will need your GPU to have at certain GL features for support for significant Flash acceleration under Linux and if your GL driver returns SGI string it will typically default to not turning acceleration on to avoid problems for those with weak GL implementations.

This is well known and is not a conspiracy. For a while OSX was in a similar position.

I have the native 64 bit Flash plugin I can tell you that it is not THAT smooth and accelerated on many Intel GPUs. You may wish to qualify your statement with some links (the PenguinSWF blog talks about the issues). On the same machine that struggles with certain Youtube Flash videos on Linux, the performance is fine under Windows. I believe you will need your GPU to have at certain GL features for support for significant Flash acceleration under Linux and if your GL driver returns SGI string it will typically default to not turning acceleration on to avoid problems for those with weak GL implementations.

This is well known and is not a conspiracy. For a while OSX was in a similar position.

Such a reason: it costs zero dollars to buy a license.

If that was so, commercial software would be dead by now. Why would you want to pay $1,000+ for Adobe CSx when you can download GIMP and Audacity?

Finally, here is a a good place for a car analogy. What would you rather drive, a free 1985 Yugo or a 2012 Mercedes CLS if you could buy it for $300?

As many people already commented, the cost of purchase is insignificant compared to the TOC. A free product can cause very clear monetary losses due to bugs, lack of features, or because users are less familiar with it. Retraining a user will cost you far more than the price of the product that the user is already familiar with. The purchase price is a one-time expense. The use expense is ongoing. If the software doesn't fit your needs you will quickly expend those little savings from not buying a different product. Past that point the balance will be all red.

Businesses are not in it for ideological reasons, they are in it to make money. A business has risks already; you take the risk when you have to (such as by investing into new products,) and you avoid risks that you don't care about (such as buying software for your wordprocessing needs.) Most businesses don't want even to hear about alternatives to the MS Office - there is not much gain to hope for, and plenty of risk.

Costs would have been relevant if MS Office costs $10,000 per seat. Yes, then people would be fleeing Office in droves, and OpenOffice could have some income from selling support - which would allow it to hire coders. (I don't know what is the current business plan with OpenOffice.) But a mere hundred dollars or two is not a sufficient barrier for businesses - it's just one of many costs, like rent, janitor, coffee, courier services, airfare, legal, accounting... software may be the center of the Universe for a geek, but a business owner has a bigger picture.

Great. I'm glad they're patching security vulnerabilities in their 32-bit product. But why do 64-bit users have to use a vulnerable version from 7 months ago?

The best solution to the crapware known as "Flash Player" (on Adobe's own site no less): http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

Electronically doing this is not an option.

Nonsense. Historical redaction fiascos involving soft copies of documents occurred because people were too stupid to realize that simply adding a black rectangle to the document didn't remove the obscured text. Adobe Acrobat includes a set of redaction tools that replaces the redacted content with a placeholder such as the traditional black rectangle. Microsoft offers a free redaction add-in for Word that removes the redacted text from the document so that it can't be recovered. Redact-It sells a product that reliably redacts text from documents of various formats, including Outlook messages.

Lol, no. Myriad Pro is a font family that Adobe created and is still selling. Trying to claim ownership over it is like.... well I don't have a good metaphor right now but it's like something shitty.

“Given a choice between doing it with CUDA or not doing it for a while [while waiting for] OpenCL, we chose the former.”

Hopefully as OpenCL matures, Adobe will see the advantages.

Apple's ban on languages other than Objective-C and standard C++ ended in early September 2010, according to an Adobe press release.

Slim quick install versions without crapware at the bottom of page on Adobes site here:
Slim Version

Actually, Firefox 4 supports this as well, out of the box.

Yes, it does, and I don't know why TFA doesn't mention it. This, from the Adobe Flash Player 10.3 beta release notes:

Integration with browser privacy controls for managing local storage – Users will have a simpler way to clear local storage from the browser settings interface – similar to how users clear their browser cookies today. Flash Player 10.3 integrates control of local storage with the browser’s privacy settings in Mozilla Firefox 4, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and higher, and future releases of Apple Safari and Google Chrome. See this related post we published in January.

What, do you think Silverlight is magic? Of course Flash can do bandwidth detection and variable bitrate streaming.

Netflix uses Silverlight because Microsoft implemented (better) DRM.

Chapter 8.4: http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/pdf_reference_1-7.pdf

There's no stand-alone Flash app for Android.

And a simple Google search shows you're wrong: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/02/adobe-air-2-6-for-android-is-now-available.html

What are you smoking? The full quote is: "There's no stand-alone Flash app for Android. The installer simply adds Flash support to the existing Android Web browser, much like the Flash plug-in does for desktop browsers." That's what it does. Your link is for Adobe AIR, which is a different product from Flash Player (which was what I was reviewing). But if you must know, there's no standalone Adobe AIR app either.

RIAs that don't work on 4 inch screens? OMG switch to HTML!

The Xoom has an eight-inch screen. And "switch to HTML" is my advice, because I've hardly found any HTML sites that suffer as badly on a tablet as Flash content does. You don't have to believe the review. If you don't, go ahead and buy a Motorola Xoom (or some other Android tablet) and enjoy Flash to your heart's content. People who have actually tried it already, on the other hand, know the review is accurate.

There's no stand-alone Flash app for Android.

And a simple Google search shows you're wrong: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/02/adobe-air-2-6-for-android-is-now-available.html

Then you continue with the nonesense: RIAs that don't work on 4 inch screens? OMG switch to HTML! I'd love to see a comparable HTML RIA that works well on a 4in device. I could go on and on but what's the point? I'm sure you'll probably defend yourself as above the fray having given the overall picture or some other such hyperbolic BS. Respond if you want, I don't care -- but at the very least do some fucking research and stop doing us all a disservice with this hatchet-job sensationalist trolling "journalism". The world does NOT need sensationalist leach journalism. Just stop.

PS: Yeah I'm posting AC, yeah this is harsh language, and I bet unpleasant for you to hear, which will probably get modded to hell but try not to miss the point.

6. RIAs. Flash runs The Weather Channel's interactive map among a bunch of other cool desktop and web apps: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplatformruntimes/gallery/

It's certainly not for everything, but as a technology it is really powerful despite being used for advertising mostly.

Does it come in via word, or via a word document? i.e. if I opened up a malicious .doc/.docx in Open Ofice, would I be affected?.

From Adobe's security bulletin:

There are reports that this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild in targeted attacks via a malicious Web page or a Flash (.swf) file embedded in a Microsoft Word (.doc) file delivered as an email attachment, targeting the Windows platform.

I don't know if OO will try to use the .swf payload inside the Word document.

I actually have an RSS feed just for Adobe security updates. It's kind of sad.

You did know Flash has P2P capability and you are opted in by default

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager09.html

set it to "disable P2P uplink for all sites" before they help themselves to your bandwidth

and mind the dataminer on the page, who knows what that 15kb obfuscated library does.

The actual Vericode post says it's both the iPhone and Android versions. I'm not sure why the article linked in the summary [and thus the summary] only mentions the Android version.

I wonder then, does the web browser interface do something similar, minus the GPS info of course? What about the Pandora One desktop app?

There are specs for getting geolocation information via JavaScript, so possibly. However, your browseri s supposed to ask your permission prior. This also doesn't preclude other Pandora components, such as Flash, which may have their own API.

That said, am I the only one who just doesn't care? This company is providing bandwidth and fronting music industry negotiations in order to deliver a useful and valuable service to me for free. As per the implicit (and explicit) contract with almost every modern free service, it's a willing exchange of information, and I'm perfectly willing to trade my phone ID and location for this service (for now).

It would be nice, though, if there was an Android requirement that each application disclosed exactly what data it was collecting, and for what purpose, in order to be included in the Marketplace.

Doesn't some Java code depend on certain resources at that domain? Isn't Oracle in the same situation Adobe was in when it purchased Macromedia? Take a look at Adobe's documentation for embedding flash (the codebase attribute in particular). http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/415/tn_4150.html Adobe still owns Macromedia.com even though they've phased out the brand from all of their products.

It's totally doable *right now* in Flash.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/pixel_bender_basics_flex_air.html

If you are considering "upgrading" to Reader X for safety, be aware that the installer does not contain an IFilter for extracting text from PDF files, so desktop search products relying on the IFilter will no longer be able to search your PDF files. Actually, it's worse than that. Not only does it lack an IFilter, it will remove the IFilter installed by older versions. More details here.

for those of you who want to check which version you have and which is the latest:

http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/

Flash is the poster child of proprietary technology

Flash and flex are completely open source. Download the sdk from adobe, and you can write flash and flex programs with nothing more than vi and a shell to run the compiler.

What's NOT opensourced is Adobe's tools. Not the same thing. You don't need a clicky-pointy interface to make flash swf files.

Flash can run on iOS via the Adobe Flash packager. Granted, developers need to develop Flash stuff using the packager for it to work, but to think the iOS cannot physically handle the Flash format is untrue. Equally granted, no guaranty on good performance and/or battery life, as I haven't personally tested it yet.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/packagerforiphone/

Well you can either get this, if you qualify:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet-archive/flex/free/

Or you can just download eclipse use that, the command line compiler and SDK are free.

Hi guys.

All complaining and whining of that guy aside, I would like to mention that people who develop Blackberry Tablet OS apps right now that get accepted into the Blackberry app world (app store) by March 15 will receive *FREE* Blackberry Playbook tablets.

Looks like dev license fees will be a little hefty after this initial "seed" period, so take advantage now and sign up now for the developer program even if you don't plan to dev in the short term just to take advantage of the free license you'll get now.

For those who don't want to gamble it all on Blackberry Tablet with your time and money, Adobe AIR is an excellent solution as AIR apps are qualified for the ongoing FREE BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK FOR EACH ACCEPTED APP developer promo ongoing 'til March 15.

AIR runs on Windows, OSX, Linux, Android 2.2+, Blackberry Tablet OS and as Apple iOS native apps (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch via the Adobe iOS Packager) so your app will have a lot of bases covered. AIR is pretty nice too because Actionscript 3 syntax/structure is pretty much Java now and easy to pick up, and you can also create AIR apps using the free open source Flex SDK, which is pretty much like the JDK except you output .SWF or AIR apps with it. Here's a free PDF ebook from O'Reilly on getting started with Flex.

Here's some stuff to get you started on AIR/Blackberry Tab: 1, 2, 3.

From what I've heard, for each app you make that is accepted in the Blackberry App world, you will receive 1 free Blackberry Tab via a redeemable coupon at Amazon.com and all you will have to pay for is shipping. Hey, free blackberry tablet is free blackberry tablet right? Take advantage now! Cheerios and hope to have helped! :)

Hi guys.

All complaining and whining of that guy aside, I would like to mention that people who develop Blackberry Tablet OS apps right now that get accepted into the Blackberry app world (app store) by March 15 will receive *FREE* Blackberry Playbook tablets.

Looks like dev license fees will be a little hefty after this initial "seed" period, so take advantage now and sign up now for the developer program even if you don't plan to dev in the short term just to take advantage of the free license you'll get now.

For those who don't want to gamble it all on Blackberry Tablet with your time and money, Adobe AIR is an excellent solution as AIR apps are qualified for the ongoing FREE BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK FOR EACH ACCEPTED APP developer promo ongoing 'til March 15.

AIR runs on Windows, OSX, Linux, Android 2.2+, Blackberry Tablet OS and as Apple iOS native apps (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch via the Adobe iOS Packager) so your app will have a lot of bases covered. AIR is pretty nice too because Actionscript 3 syntax/structure is pretty much Java now and easy to pick up, and you can also create AIR apps using the free open source Flex SDK, which is pretty much like the JDK except you output .SWF or AIR apps with it. Here's a free PDF ebook from O'Reilly on getting started with Flex.

Here's some stuff to get you started on AIR/Blackberry Tab: 1, 2, 3.

From what I've heard, for each app you make that is accepted in the Blackberry App world, you will receive 1 free Blackberry Tab via a redeemable coupon at Amazon.com and all you will have to pay for is shipping. Hey, free blackberry tablet is free blackberry tablet right? Take advantage now! Cheerios and hope to have helped! :)

Hi guys.

All complaining and whining of that guy aside, I would like to mention that people who develop Blackberry Tablet OS apps right now that get accepted into the Blackberry app world (app store) by March 15 will receive *FREE* Blackberry Playbook tablets.

Looks like dev license fees will be a little hefty after this initial "seed" period, so take advantage now and sign up now for the developer program even if you don't plan to dev in the short term just to take advantage of the free license you'll get now.

For those who don't want to gamble it all on Blackberry Tablet with your time and money, Adobe AIR is an excellent solution as AIR apps are qualified for the ongoing FREE BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK FOR EACH ACCEPTED APP developer promo ongoing 'til March 15.

AIR runs on Windows, OSX, Linux, Android 2.2+, Blackberry Tablet OS and as Apple iOS native apps (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch via the Adobe iOS Packager) so your app will have a lot of bases covered. AIR is pretty nice too because Actionscript 3 syntax/structure is pretty much Java now and easy to pick up, and you can also create AIR apps using the free open source Flex SDK, which is pretty much like the JDK except you output .SWF or AIR apps with it. Here's a free PDF ebook from O'Reilly on getting started with Flex.

Here's some stuff to get you started on AIR/Blackberry Tab: 1, 2, 3.

From what I've heard, for each app you make that is accepted in the Blackberry App world, you will receive 1 free Blackberry Tab via a redeemable coupon at Amazon.com and all you will have to pay for is shipping. Hey, free blackberry tablet is free blackberry tablet right? Take advantage now! Cheerios and hope to have helped! :)