Adobe releases Flash Player 10.1 for Mac

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Adobe has declared its 10.1 release of Flash Player a Golden Master and is now serving it as the default Flash Player download after more than six months of beta testing.



The new Universal Binary Flash 10.1 works with Firefox, Opera and Safari and fixes a variety of outstanding problems. Chrome is notably absent from Adobe's list of supported browsers on the Mac. The 10.1 release is also being offered for Windows, Linux and Solaris users, along with a beta version that works with Android 2.2.



The latest Safari 5 ships with Flash Player 10.0; Mac users wanting to upgrade to the latest version of Flash can do so at Adobe's download site.



Flash privacy failure



Among the new features of Flash 10.1 is support for browser privacy features, which prevent Flash local data and browsing activity from persisting locally if the user has turned on the private browsing feature.



However, Adobe says this feature is not supported for Opera or Safari, meaning that Flash content won't respect users' private browsing preferences.



Another feature of Flash 10.1 is new DRM content protection that limits playback of video content over analog or digital outputs. However, that feature is only enforced on Windows.



Preview support for hardware accelerated video



The new Flash Player 10.1 release doesn't yet include official support for hardware video acceleration, a new feature Apple just enabled Adobe to provide with new Mac OS X APIs.



However, Adobe is making its second preview release of "Gala" H.264 hardware decoding available for download for users who want to try it out.



The new H.264 hardware acceleration will enable new Flash videos encoded using H.264 to play more efficiently on Mac hardware, as QuickTime X already does for raw, non-Flash H.264 video for users with modern Macs (equipped with NVIDIA 9400M or better graphics) and Snow Leopard.



Mobile beta for Android



A second beta release for Android 2.2 was also released, along with the claim by Adobe that more than 250 million smartphones would be able to run Flash Player by 2012, also phrased as 53% of the 300 million smartphones it expects to be sold two years from now.



Adobe also said it plans to bring Flash Player to HP's Palm OS, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, Nokia's Symbian OS, and RIM's BlackBerry OS at some point in the future. Apple has passed on supporting a version of Flash Player for its iOS devices, with the company's chief executive Steve Jobs saying recently that Adobe failed to ever demonstrate a version of Flash Player that could perform well enough to include on the iPhone.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 266
    icarbonicarbon Posts: 196member
    but the real question is... will it blend?



    really, if they can't manage consistency with two of the major browsers out there, what exactly are they doing? Considering what they charge for most of their development software, you'd expect all of their software to be extremely well-maintained.
  • Reply 2 of 266
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iCarbon View Post


    but the real question is... will it blend?



    really, if they can't manage consistency with two of the major browsers out there, what exactly are they doing? Considering what they charge for most of their development software, you'd expect all of their software to be extremely well-maintained.



    One would think so, yes. Unfortunately, the Adobe that all feared when they they bought out (crushed) Macromedia has come alive. It's the Microsoft of the early 90's, without the monopoly. An aging giant Adobe is, and it had better get its shit together before long or it will fade into history.
  • Reply 3 of 266
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    I tried 10.1 on my Mac using my daughter's favorite Flash site, www.webkinz.com.



    Unfortunately, it's not a heck of a lot better than 10.0. Running about100% CPU utilization on my Mac Mini (4 GB RAM, 2.5 GHz Core 2 Duo). The old version went to around 110-120% CPU utilization on a MacBook Pro with 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo and 3 GB of RAM. The reduction in CPU usage is pretty much in line with system capabilities.



    If it's still requiring 100% of a 2.5 GHz Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM, why would anyone think it would ever work on an iPhone?



    Another Adobe Fail.
  • Reply 4 of 266
    Just in time for zero day exploit. flash was removed a long time ago!!
  • Reply 5 of 266
    In addition to the other negatives listed, 10.1 cannot run under 64-bit browsers -- so it cannot be installed as a plugin to 64-bit IE.



    Jobs is right -- they're lazy.
  • Reply 6 of 266
    prof. peabodyprof. peabody Posts: 2,860member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by technohermit View Post


    One would think so, yes. Unfortunately, the Adobe that all feared when they they bought out (crushed) Macromedia has come alive. It's the Microsoft of the early 90's, without the monopoly. An aging giant Adobe is, and it had better get its shit together before long or it will fade into history.



    In fact, the reason Adobe makes such crap software is that they *do* have a monopoly.



    If the anti-trust laws in the US had any teeth at all they would never have been allowed to buy out Macromedia. A clearer case for enforcing the anti-trust law couldn't have been made (well except for Microsoft having 90% plus of the OS market at the time).
  • Reply 7 of 266
    mactelmactel Posts: 1,275member
    Sounds like a pretty lame release with lots for features we can't take advantage of.



    What's with not supporting Chrome? That's one of Adobe's closest buddies.



    I certainly won't go out of my way to pick-up this latest pile-o-crap. Jobs was right that Adobe has some lazy developers. Who releases such an incomplete product. Does anyone doubt the Steve'o now?
  • Reply 8 of 266
    N E W S F L A S H !!! Adobe to buy Front Page Technology from Microsoft and make it available immediately for Windows XP (service pack 1 only) and OS 9.1 on the MAC. Upgrades to newer OS's to follow in 4-5 years.
  • Reply 9 of 266
    runs just fine here.



    Like most stuff on my mac.
  • Reply 10 of 266
    oc4theooc4theo Posts: 294member
    This Adobe people are CLUELESS. This release is absolutely USELESS.



    Adobe recently claimed that they will a Flash Player that will run on multiple mobile devices, so that developers can write one app that works on multiple platforms. Well, this release is further proof that their claim is BASELESS.



    Flash 10.1 supposedly works on some platforms, offering varying degrees of functions to each platform or program. That really sucks!!! Who makes decisions at this CLUELESS company?



    How about throwing a computer with each download?



    THE WHOLE THING SMELLS BAD!!!
  • Reply 11 of 266
    plovellplovell Posts: 824member
    I guess that if I had a product with a major zero-day security hole then I might hustle the new version out the door.



    "Here it comes - ready or not"
  • Reply 12 of 266
    pt123pt123 Posts: 696member
    I installed it too and it works great, no problems. Hulu, Foxsports.com, yahoo all working great.
  • Reply 13 of 266
    Yea, and it STILL is NOT 64-bit! Get with the program, Adobe!

  • Reply 14 of 266
    amdahlamdahl Posts: 100member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by plovell View Post


    I guess that if I had a product with a major zero-day security hole then I might hustle the new version out the door.



    "Here it comes - ready or not"



    It wasn't rushed out. Adobe had planned to ship by end of 1H2010, which is 20 days from now. The version they shipped was release candidate 7, which was first released June 2, before this zero-day flaw was announced, and they had been generating RCs about every 14 days. It had been in public beta for many months. I think the first reviews were last October or November.
  • Reply 15 of 266
    I've installed "click to flash" a while back, just to see what I would really be missing when I got my iPad. Actually, I have not missed any flash content, so I have just left that installed.



    I'm not a gamer, so the only thing I am missing so far has just been ads. Stuff like Hulu doesn't work for us in Canada anyway, so I'm not missing that anyway.
  • Reply 16 of 266
    h2ph2p Posts: 329member
    "However, Adobe says this feature is not supported for Opera or Safari, meaning that Flash content won't respect users' private browsing preferences." is all that I needed to hear... I'm skeptical... it make me ask:



    Does this mean it will be less likely to be secure somehow?
  • Reply 17 of 266
    h2ph2p Posts: 329member
    ...also I was unable to choose which browser to install the update. It required that I install into all of my browsers (I bounce between Firefox & Safari).
  • Reply 18 of 266
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    If you watch YouTube often you can now run their HTML5 version completely and still get fullscreen with a Safari 5 extension.
    Save your CPU cycles for something useful and help prevent Flash crashes.
  • Reply 19 of 266
    It works about as well as a piece of dump for me. Safari 5 was working perfectly for a few days. I just installed the new Flash and it's crashing every couple minutes. In the plug-in path description in the error report it shows Adobe Flash as the culprit. I'd advise not to install it, if you use Safari 5 until they get a fix.
  • Reply 20 of 266
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    I downloaded it only to be told that the Gala beta I'm using is later software.



    If you are using the Gala beta don't waste your time downloading this.
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