Adobe Flash Player v10.1 Is Out
Major Release - Recommended Upgrade

Current Version: v10.1.53.64


After countless betas and 7 - count 'em 7! - release candidates, Adobe (finally) released a final version of Adobe Flash Player v10.1 to the masses on Thursday.

What is important about this release is that flash FINALLY uses hardware acceleration to offset its video decoding, which in turn makes heavily-flash-laden web pages load quicker and feel snappier. Flash is THE #1 thing that bogs down web surfing and drives up your RAM usage, and I can safely say there has been a noticeable performance increase made here. Firefox feels like a whole new browser with this new version of flash. There were also SERIOUS memory optimizations done to flash as well. Testing it out on a few flash sites like Hulu which kill Firefox's memory over time has indeed kept my Firefox memory usage down to reasonable levels. ESPN.com loads fast as hell now, when on Firefox it used to load very sluggish and feel bloated.


Needless to say, I wouldn't be taking the time to make a thread about this if I didn't heartily endorse EVERYONE to upgrade their flash to this newer version.



Adobe Blog Flash v10.1 Press Release: (ie. The Update Notes):
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2010/06/flash_player_101_now_available.html



Standard Flash Install/Upgrade: Web Upgrade
If you want to upgrade your already-existing version of Flash to this new version via web download, go to the standard Adobe Flash site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

The web update should work well enough for most people. If you want to be certain everything goes smoothly, you can download and run the manual uninstaller first (link below for all OS'es) and then return to the standard flash web installer page.



Windows Users: Manual Uninstall/Install (Recommended)
For those running Windows, I recommend you manually uninstall old versions/manually install the new version:


1. Download the manual Adobe Flash uninstaller from here:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

Be sure to choose the proper version of the uninstaller that corresponds with your OS.


2. Download both versions of the Adobe Flash v10.1 manual installers from these links:

Windows ActiveX installer [For IE users and users of IE-based flash implementations]:
http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_ax.exe [Direct Link]

Windows Non-IE Plugin [For Firefox, Chrome, and any other non-IE-based flash implementations]:
http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player.exe [Direct Link]


3. Run the flash uninstaller, then run both installers. Even if you don't think you'll need both flash plugins installed, do it anyway. You never know.





Enjoy a new era of Adobe Flash. A tolerable era of Flash.

Seriously, this is like the crystalline drop of web developments. Let's all get together and do the dance of joy:

Yea, but have they developed a fucking 64 bit version yet? That's pissing me off.

Adobe hates apple... and there's a big story behind it. Adobe decided not to include Hardware Acceleration on v10.1 release on Mac OSX. Hardware Acceleration flash on Mac is staying in beta with limited support for much more time.

HTML5, GO GO GO. Just needs more tweaking and added functionality and then it will kick flashes ass.

Apparently there were SERIOUS 0-Day security vulnerabilities in the older Flash versions too, which are patched in this newer version:


http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/198575/adobe_fixes_flash_zeroday_with_massive_security_update.html?tk=hp_new

Quote:

It has been a very busy week for IT administrators and security professionals. Microsoft issued ten security bulletins addressing 34 vulnerabilities in its June Patch Tuesday, then followed with a security advisory for a newly unveiled zero-day flaw. Apple pushed out an update for the Safari Web browser that fixes 48 separate security vulnerabilities. And now, Adobe joins the party with its own huge security update. "Adobe's Flash update today contains a staggering 32 bug fixes, eerily reminiscent of Apple's massive update. It's been a busy couple of weeks for overworked security teams everywhere," agrees Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, adding "It sure looks like Adobe is the new Microsoft--the place where security researchers love to find new bugs." A Websense alert from May 29 explains that the Adobe Flash vulnerability is being exploited through drive-by downloads on many infected Web sites. "Websense ThreatSeeker has been tracking these malicious web sites and have discovered numerous reputable web sites that are now unwilling participants, infecting their very own visitors. These sites are from various industries such as government, education, healthcare, finance, media, and entertainment. This attack also attempts to exploit other popular vulnerabilities such as MDAC, RealPlayer, and various ActiveX controls." Storms explains "It's pretty clear that Adobe has had the zero-day bug that got a lot of attention last week for a while. It might look like Adobe made heroic efforts to fix this bug in short order, but it's much more likely they have been working on the fix for a while and just finished the packaging and QA process."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8734465.stm

Quote:

Adobe fixes 'critical' Flash flaw Adobe's Flash software has become a favourite among hi-tech criminals Adobe has fixed a "critical" security flaw that had the potential to allow hackers to take control of affected computer systems. The bug was first spotted in early June week following a small number of targeted attacks. The security update is one in a bumper update package that fixes a total of 32 documented vulnerabilities. Adobe's Flash and Reader software have emerged as prime targets for hi-tech criminals in the past year. Users running Windows, Macintosh or Linux were all thought to be vulnerable to attack. Security firm Websense said the flaw was being exploited via e-mails that prompted recipients to open booby-trapped websites seeded with malware. Users visiting the websites would have their computers infected with trojans and other malicious programs that opened a backdoor into the machine. Adobe urged users to apply the update as soon as possible. Adobe said it would release an update at the end of June for its Reader and Acrobat programs which addresses a similar bug that makes it possible to booby-trap PDFs.

Hmmmm, I bet more than anything that's how the fuck I got the damn trojan into my system last week that messed my computer up. Damnit! No way in hell I got infected through normal means. I regularly travel back & forth to the dark corners of the internet and go YEARS without even the littlest of spyware infections.