Adobe: No Linux Flash Player Till 2007

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Impatient Linux users will have to wait till the end of the year for even a preview release of Adobe's Flash Player 9. The company's lead Flash for Linux engineer, Mike Melanson , reported this week in his blog that Adobe won't release any alpha versions of its Flash port, holding out instead for a full-featured beta scheduled for release sometime late this year.

Adobe recently released a major Flash overhaul, version 9, for Windows and Macintosh clients. For Linux users, the release lengthened the Flash gap between them and other users: Adobe skipped Flash Player 8 for Linux and hasn't released a Linux update since mid-2004. Because Flash is not fully backward-compatible, Web content developed for the newer Flash players often won't run in version 7, the most current Linux version. Adobe's market research shows that 86 percent of U.S. computer users are able to view Flash 8 content. "I have to question a cross-platform strategy that has a bias against one platform," RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady, a Linux user, gripped in his blog. The lack of a modern Flash player leaves him unable to view content on a number of Web sites, including major destinations like ESPN.com.

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News source: CRN

(4 replies) #1 denzilla on 04 Sep 2006 - 09:55

Web developers need to phase out the use of Flash, period. There is no excuse for Adobe dragging their ass with x64 and Linux variants. Yea, there is less of a market, but sometimes you gotta bite the bullet and do what makes sense for the future.

#1.1 danj205 on 04 Sep 2006 - 11:09

Especially since web technology has come so far that most of the things that use Flash can now be coded up in some Javascript.

#1.2 barneyt on 04 Sep 2006 - 11:12

I completely agree with you on this!

Barney

#1.3 midsummerstorm on 04 Sep 2006 - 14:01

You're forgetting one little site called YouTube.

#1.4 Z3r0 on 05 Sep 2006 - 01:00

I need shockwave for my uni online tutorials

So when is that coming!?

#2 kgraphik on 04 Sep 2006 - 14:00

Haven't they been saying that it won't be out until next year for a while now?

(1 reply) #3 Steffan on 04 Sep 2006 - 16:30

I'm getting tired of visting websites and it requires newer version of flash.

#3.1 advancedboy on 04 Sep 2006 - 21:10

Answer: http://www.howtoforge.com/node/1468

It may be slow, but it's better than waiting for a beta/leak, or (worse) till it comes out.

(1 reply) #4 guylaroche on 04 Sep 2006 - 17:18

Who cares? Windows is better than Linux, anyway..... LOL Just kidding. Linux has it's place, but it's not the be-all and end-all some people make it out to be. Why would Adobe make Linux a large priority, anyway? 90%+ of computer users use Windows, another 5%-6% use OS X (or other Apple OSs), and the rest are divided among Linux/BSD/Novell/etc. It's not like Linux is a huge market for Adobe.

#4.1 h3xis on 04 Sep 2006 - 17:37

A lot of people care. Try third world countries who are in the transition of adopting Linux as their primary OS. In fact, your statistics are wrong. There are more Linux users online than Mac users. People make excuses that they don't use Linux because so-and-so software isn't available for it. Then, when a company decides to port software to the OS, people STILL bitch about it because they don't think Linux is "good enough" or worth the time and effort. Make up your damn minds.

#5 BetaguyGZT on 04 Sep 2006 - 17:31

You can always install Wine, then Firefox, then the newest flash. I've done it and it works okay. Not great, but okay.

(1 reply) #6 acnpt on 04 Sep 2006 - 18:05

Why havn't the linux users developed an open source alternative yet...

#6.1 Sterling Christensen on 04 Sep 2006 - 21:54

They're trying, but Gnash is nowhere near ready to replace Flash Player.

#7 StepASide on 04 Sep 2006 - 18:19

#8 billyea on 04 Sep 2006 - 18:25

People rely on Flash too much.

#9 thagame on 05 Sep 2006 - 05:36

advancedboy what about us users that despise both ubuntu and firefox. I use wine and ie it installs flash9 no problems and runs smooth.

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