Adobe?s Flash Player is one of the most installed technologies on desktop computer systems. Adobe estimates that more than 99% of Internet viewers have Flash installed on their system. Criticism of Adobe Flash, and Adobe?s handling of Flash related issues, has risen in past years. Major points of criticism include private and security related issues or the missing support for 64-bit software.
Adobe Flash?s dominant position lately has become under attack by new emerging technologies. The rise of HTML5, and supported technologies, could seriously impact the dominance of Flash in coming years.
Adobe as a response has increased their efforts to improve the Flash Player. The latest development version, Adobe Flash Player 10.3 Beta, has been made available recently for all supported operating systems.
Flash Player 10.3 Beta introduces several new features, of which at least two have been requested by privacy conscious users for a very long time.
Adobe?s introductory page lists the following new features of Flash Player 10.3:
- Media Measurement
- Acoustic Echo Cancellation
- Integration with browser privacy control for local storage
- Native Control Panel
- Auto-Update Notification for Mac OS
The most interesting new feature from a privacy and security standpoint is called ?integration with browser privacy control for local storage?.
Web browsers up until now did not have an option to delete local Flash storage, commonly referred to as Flash cookies. Users either had to use Adobe?s inflexible online control panel, third party software or manual options to remove Flash data from the system (see Four Options To Deal With Flash Cookies).
Adobe started to integrate access to local storage, or more precisely the ability to clear local storage, directly in the web browser with the latest beta release of Flash. The release notes state that it will be available first in Mozilla Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 8, and at a later point in time released for Apple Safari and Google Chrome. The document does not mention the Opera web browser at all.
The current beta version does not seem to add the controls to the web browsers yet. A test with the latest Firefox 4 Minefield release revealed no new options. Adobe states that the integration with Internet Explorer is not available yet as well, but will be enabled in a future beta update.
The feature itself improves the privacy of the user. That?s great. It is not so great that Adobe does not seem to have it included at all in the first beta version of the browser.
The Native Control Panel is the second addition for Windows, Mac and Linux; It improves the management of Flash settings on those operating systems. Flash Player 10.3 will add controls to manage privacy, security and storage settings directly in the control panels of the operating systems. That feature however is not enabled in the beta as well.
Media Measurement provides integration of video analytics into Flash which gives companies and producers information about the audience and video distribution.
Acoustic Echo Cancellation gives developers additional options at hand to improve peer-to-peer communication with Flash Player. New features include noise suppression, voice activity detection, acoustic echo cancellation and automatic compensation for microphone input levels.
Verdict
The new Flash Player features look might fine on paper, but since half of them are developer features that need to be added to flash contents, and the other half features that are not enabled yet, it makes little sense for end users to download and install Flash Player 10.3 beta.
If you do not want to wait, you find downloads for all Flash Player 10.3 beta releases at Adobe Labs.
Update: The Flash Player Settings Manager appeared in the Control Panel after uninstalling and installing the latest Flash Player beta and restarting the Pc.
The applet Flash Player (32-bit) consists of the four tabs Storage, Camera and Mic, Playback and Advanced. Take a look at the screenshots below for a first impression of the feature.
The storage settings can be configured in the Storage tab. Here it is possible to allow or block all sites, or configure Adobe Flash to always ask when a site wants to save information on the computer. The button Locale Storage Settings by Site opens a new window that lists all websites and servers that are storing data on the PC. Options available there are to delete individual entries and to change the permissions of the host. The Delete all button in the main interface deletes all data that is currently stored on the system.
Camera and Mic allows to block all sites from using the camera and microphone or configure Flash Player to ask whenever a site wants to access the devices. The Camera and Microphone Settings by Site button opens a new window to allow or block access from specific sites.
Peer-assisted networking is configured under Playback. Here it is possible to block all sites from using peer-assisted networking. The default setting displays a confirmation dialog whenever a site wants to make use of the technology. It is again possible to configure rules for specific sites with a click on the Peer-assisted Networking Settings by Site button.
The advanced settings finally display a Delete All button to delete all local storage, saved choices, settings and other data used by content in Flash Player across all browsers on the computer. It is possible to change the update settings from automatic updates to never check for updates. The Check Now button can be used to check for updates manually.
The two remaining options are to specify trusted location settings for developer testing, and to deauthorize the computer which prevents Flash from playing previously viewed protected contents.
Adobe has placed several web links in the control panel applet that open documentation pages. Follow this link to open the start page of the Native Control Panel documentation.
Related Articles:
Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Beta, Improves Hardware AccelerationAdobe Flash Player 10.2 beta Arrives
Adobe Flash Player Security Update
Adobe Releases Flash 10.1 and Air 2.0 Previews
Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player Zero Day Vulnerability
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Good article, but no mention of 64-bit?
That?s because Adobe has not provided details on the 64-bit issue. Downloads as far as I can see are only available for 32-bit.
In 32-bit XP Pro, a new ?Flash Player? item appears in Control Panel that permits user settings for certain features. Whether these settings are actually effective is not yet clear to me.
Interesting, I do not see the entry under Windows 7 64-bit Pro
This new settings manager functionality is much less granular than the old ?mms.cfg? method of controlling settings locally. This beta is probably an improvement for the average user, but may be a step backwards (at least for the moment) for the advanced user.
Can you post a few screenshots of it?
Martin,
The machine I am currently on is locked down to prevent screen grabs, so I can?t post them at the moment. Perhaps another reader with a 32-bit machine could post them?
I would caution users of this beta to make sure that their settings in the new control panel ?stick?. I noticed that the more restrictive settings I had selected reverted to the default settings after running CCleaner, as I had a custom setting to delete ?*.sol? files. Adding an exculsion for ?settings.sol? in ?C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys? solved the problem. Note that this was due to my custom delete settings. If the user just ticks the Adobe Flash box in the CCleaner applications menu, the settings.sol file created by the control panel will not be deleted and the settings should be preserved.
I have updated the article with additional information about the control panel applet.