10.6.4 Update Includes Older, Slower and Buggier Version of Flash

Steve Jobs has openly criticized Adobe Flash as being slow, buggy, insecure and crash prone… so it seems strange that the recent 10.6.4 update to Snow Leopard did not bother to include the latest version of Flash that actually addresses many of thoese concerns.

The version of Flash in 10.6.4 is version 10.0.45.2, while the latest version is 10.1.53.64, which not only patches numerous security vulnerabilities but implements support for hardware flash decoding under OS X… commonly cited as the number one reason why Flash works better on Windows than on a Mac. (Edit: As commenters below helpfully inform me, no, it jolly well doesn’t. Hardware decoding is coming in a future version of Flash for Mac.)

A conspiracist might think that Apple doesn’t want Adobe to fix Flash: they just want it to die. My guess, though, is that it takes so long to thoroughly test a software update that last week’s Flash update was simply too late to be bundled in.

If you’re concerned, just download and install the latest version of Flash yourself: it’s quite the improvement.

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About the author

John Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in News, Software |

http://www.imetstuart.com Stuart Gibson
Yes, if they changed the version of Flash bundled they would have to go through another full round of testing. 10.6.4 has been in the RC stage for well over a month now.
C.Mac
Wait, so if you were already running Flash 10.1, does OS X 10.6.4 downgrade you?
Adrian Price
well I’m using the newest version of Flash and it’s made my Facebook Life hell. Nothing is rendering properly in the games i Play in Safari, Camino or Firefox. i resorted to chrome – something never wanted to do
http://www.nimbling.com Herman
Of note, the update did not downgrade my Flash version, it’s still at 10.1.53.64 – so if you manually upgraded to that version before the 10.6.4OSX upgrade, fret not.
Kranbollin
I had the most recent Flash plugin installed before updating, but didn’t record the number. After the OS X update, the Adobe web site tells me I have version 10.1.81.3 (?).
crazyotto
Adobe has said Flash hardware decoding is not yet supported. It will be available later.
Mike
crazyotto is right.
You fail at research.
http://www.grinningidiot.com JAYnLA
John — I upgraded my Flash last week and Safari’s been crashing a lot ever since. HATE IT. Anybody know how to downgrade flash?
http://www.project3.co.za Alan
If you have a newer version of Flash installed (in fact if you have a newer version of almost anything installed) the installer is smart enough not to replace the newer version with and older one.
http://www.lugaresdemexico.com/ Ernesto
Life is good without flash
charli
Here’s another thought to ponder. Maybe Adobe wouldn’t give them the update to put in the installer. Since Apple is so negative on Flash why “burden” users with it being forced on them. Those that know the truth are perfectly capable of going to Adobe’s site and getting it directly from them.
jah
Do you really believe operating systems should base releases on including another company’s software update to fix their previous buggy releases? It must be hard to be that ignorant.
Salaryman
I think the update is awesome. I have noticed that click to flash loads faster now.
Jim
Another recommendation here for Click-to-Flash. It’s wonderful to quickly load pages and not have endure all the flash-ads.
http://clicktoflash.com/
ivan
click to flash is wonderful, agree
DJ
Well, installed 10.6.4 on an older C2D Macbook (pre-Nvidia) & the Disk R/W is severely capped, beach balled, dis permissions fixed…cannot open any flash based website even after manually updating….what a cluster-f.
At least I have function now, aka up to 4MB R/W & no constant beachball….going to revert back & probably plan a reinstall ASAP (my latest image is not new enough unfortunately). Apple !> MS
Sterling J Badon
Well. I believe most of my issues with this last update stem around adobe. I have update to the new flash and then all hell broke lose! If Apple isn’t going to write stuff to support Flash and allow it to conflict with stuff then tell us. The issues with flash are on both sides. Adobe is guilty of poor design and the reason I have had lost productivity. Maybe Steve Jobs is sick of the headache of trying to fix “code around” old software that holds back progress. I am just babbling. Mostly frustrated with the latest update and the freezing it causes.