Download Adobe Flash Player “Square” for IE9 with 64-bit Support

With the release of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), where the IE9 Beta has just been made publicly available, the 64-bit (x64) web browser is starting to gather momentum. Previously, despite IE8 already has a 64-bit version, the x64 edition does not get much attention and usage due to lack of compatibility and support in add-ons and plug-ins, where the 32-bit programs including Adobe Flash Player required to work through a compatibility layer.

In conjunction with the availability of IE9, Adobe has released a preview of Adobe Flash Player named Square, which optimized for Internet Explorer 9 and includes native 64-bit support for 64-bit web browser on all major 64-bit desktop operating systems including Linux, Mac, and Windows.

According to Adobe Flash Player Team blog, Flash Player “Square” has been enhanced to directly support the hardware-accelerated graphics capabilities in the newest version of IE to deliver a faster and more responsive user experience, and the 64-bit version of Flash Player, available for first time for Windows and Mac OS X platform, is fully functional, so all content should be compatible. 

However, do note that Adobe Flash Player “Square” is a standalone preview version to highlight 64-bit and enhanced IE9 support in Flash Player. It is not a “beta release” of a specific version of Flash Player. In order to keep the Square branch of Flash Player up to date, user have to manually install updates from the Flash Player “Square” download page on Adobe Labs, as no automatic update notifications for future final releases of Flash Player. Furthermore, user will need to manually uninstall Flash Player “Square” before installing a final shipping version of Flash Player.

As the current stable release of Flash Player also supporting 64-bit web browser through compatibility layer, the faint-heart should stick to official release version of Flash Player, which will get incorporated with these two 64-bit and IE9 hardware accelerated rendering support new capabilities by first half of 2011.

Download Flash Player “Square”