Flash Player 10.3 available for download

Adobe has released the final version of Flash Player 10.3.

Flash Player 10.3.181.14 for Windows, Mac OS and Linux is now available for download, along with Flash Player 10.3.185.21 for Android. This is the final Flash Player 10.3 engine.

It’s a critical update in the sense that it corrects a dozen security vulnerabilities, and while making the system safer, Flash Player 10.3 also brings with it new functions.

Still looking at security and more particularly confidentiality, Flash Player 10.3 integrates local storage control with web browser private life settings. This is a way of easily deleting Local Shared Objects (Flash cookies) rather than having to use the online application present on Adobe’s website.

We should also point out that this online manager has settings which can be configured via the contextual menu displayed when right clicking on Flash content will now be found in the native control panel for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Besides deleting local storage, the user can manage, for example, the webcam settings, microphone and other options.

To manage the LSO from the browser, Adobe has worked in collaboration with the open source community to develop a new API called ClearSiteData NPAPI. Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface is the general API plug-in used by browsers. When a user wants to delete browsing information, the LSO’s are also included. This is at least the case with Firefox 4 and will also be integrated into Google Chrome 12.

Adobe has also worked with Microsoft so as to offer an equivalent function in Internet Explorer. It is already operational with IE8 and IE9 when a user deletes their browsing history.

For Mac OS X, Flash Player 10.3 automatically handles the software updates. With their desktop version, Flash Player 10.3 also introduces new developer possibilities linked to audio: the cancelling of acoustic echo, noise reduction, voice detection and automatic compensation for different microphone inputs.

Finally, for editors, Media Measurement allows you to obtain real time information about how their video is distributed while also seeing how many times their video has been viewed…

Flash Player 10.3 can be downloaded from Adobe’s site.

It should also be noted that the old technology nicknamed Molehill which was planned for Flash Player 11 is now called Stage 3D. These are low level API’s for 3D GPU acceleration. Another point which should be mentioned is that there is still no 64-bit version for Flash Player, with work still ongoing.