Handpicked Software

Adobe’s Shockwave and Flash Player, as it is formally called, is one of the most ubiquitous Web browser plug-ins, allowing you to view all kinds of nice interactive animations many people have produced for their Web sites. While not quite essential, this will make your Web browsing experience much more enjoyable.

What’s New:
Version 9.0.64 beta:

• Support for H.264 video and HE-AAC audio codecs (new Aug. 21).
• Enhancements to full-screen mode to use hardware scaling for improved video performance and quality on systems running Windows 2000 and newer or Mac OS X 10.2 and newer.
• Faster rendering of vector graphics on multi-core CPUs.
• Higher quality and performance for downscaling large bitmaps (SWF 9 only).
• Support for caching common platform components, such as the Flex framework, to reduce average application sizes. This feature is enabled in the Flex 3 beta available on Adobe Labs.
• Support for full-screen mode on Linux.
• Recursive calling to and from JavaScript via the ExternalInterface API is now permitted (not available in Opera or Netscape).
• Runtime errors can now be thrown from JavaScript to ActionScript via the External Interface API.
• HTTP requests from the Flash Player ActiveX Control in some versions of Internet Explorer did not include the Accept-Language header. The ActiveX Control now always inserts this header.
• Support for Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) in the Windows plug-in.

Developer’s website: Adobe Systems, Inc.