March 16, 2009
Update on installation issues on the Player Download Center when unselecting the toolbar offer
For those of you who have reported issues with not being able to install Flash Player from the Player Download Center when you choose not to install Google Toolbar -- we've fixed the problem. The problem was that some users that unchecked the Google Toolbar offer were sent into a loop and not able to install the player. The issue occurred for machines that do not send http referrer information (possibly because of personal firewalls, ISPs that block sending HTTP referrer, etc). The download center was checking referrer information to make sure the users were directed to the right landing page for Flash Player installation, and we've now modified it to handle this case more gracefully.
Thanks to those users who worked with our support team to gather the information we needed to find and fix this problem. This fix went live on 2/17, so if you are still experiencing the same problem please leave a comment.
Posted by ehuang at 04:11 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
December 16, 2008
Improving live video experiences
Some of you have noticed that CNN Live recently began offering users an option to view an enhanced live video experience for their Flash video streams. The experience is enhanced by using grid delivery technology, which promises to enable more efficient distribution of live video by allowing clients to receive a single live video broadcast from both streaming servers and other clients connected to the same live video stream. This is different from P2P communication where clients communicate amongst themselves without passing the data through the server. Grid delivery is intended to provide a scalable solution for live events that helps content providers reach larger audiences and maintain a high quality of service at a lower cost than many existing solutions. For users, this should mean faster start-up times and a smoother live video experience.
Live events are important to our customers, and grid delivery is one of the technologies we are exploring to improve live video delivery. As you know, we take great care in determining the features of Flash Player because once something is in, it is in forever. So we are piloting the technology with a few pilot sites and live events to see how it performs and measure its effect on video delivery efficiency and the end-user video experience. Note that initially not everyone that visits the pilot sites will be given the opportunity to view the grid delivery enhanced video, but those that do will be asked to install an Octoshape grid delivery add-in. The add-in is delivered by Adobe through Flash Player express install, but don’t take that to mean we’ve opened up the feature as a general purpose installation mechanism. We wanted to ensure that we got large enough samples for the trial and that users received the best user experience possible, so the add-in is delivered by Adobe through express install specifically for the pilot. CNN Live has done a nice job with the implementation so that users that decline to install the add-in will still be able to view the standard Flash video stream.
Being able to pilot a technology like this with a partner like CNN Live is a great opportunity. The pilot will allow us to measure the experience at a large scale and determine if we truly are improving live video delivery and the end user experience. If it is successful, we will be exploring how to bring the technology to the player for broader use. We’re interested in user feedback on the live video experience, so if you have the opportunity to try out the enhanced video on CNN Live, leave a comment and let us know how it worked for you.
Posted by ehuang at 08:13 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
November 21, 2008
Text Layout Framework beta available on Adobe Labs
The Text Layout Framework beta, an extensible library built on the new text engine in Adobe Flash Player 10, is available on Adobe Labs today! The Text Layout Framework (TLF) delivers advanced, easy-to-integrate typographic and text layout features for your Flash and Flex-based content and we have a lot of information and examples to help get you started.
In addition to the cool feature demo created for us by the guys at Bluefire Productions (Thanks Micah and Patrick!), we have an online version of the Text Layout Editor component for Flash CS4 Professional, so you can check out the new typographic and text layout capabilities right away. You can download the source code for the feature demo, and we have also provided the source for the Flash MXP for the component. TLF is also already integrated into Flex Gumbo in the Gumbo components.
The Text Layout Framework and the new text engine in Flash Player 10 and Adobe AIR 1.5 bring some amazing new capabilities to the Flash Platform, including:
* Bidirectional text, vertical text and over 30 writing scripts including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese, and others.
* Selection, editing and flowing text across multiple columns and linked containers, and around inline images
* Vertical text, Tate-Chu-Yoko (horizontal within vertical text) and justifier for East Asian typography
* Rich typographical controls, including kerning, ligatures, typographic case, digit case, digit width and discretionary hyphens * Cut, copy, paste, undo and standard keyboard and mouse gestures for editing
* Rich developer APIs to manipulate text content, layout, markup and create custom text components.
Check out the release notes for a full list of the new features.
The Text Layout Framework team has started their own blog, so be sure to check it out as you start to work with TLF. Give it a whirl and give us feedback on the Labs forums.
Posted by ehuang at 01:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
November 17, 2008
SWF 10 spec available AND Flash Player alpha for 64-bit Linux on Labs
This week is the Adobe MAX conference in San Francisco, and along with that we have a few special treats for you.
First, the updated SWF and FLV specs are now available! I think this is the fastest we've gotten updates out post release, and special thanks to Mike who worked on the spec update. He has more details on the changes on his blog.
Also available today...64-bit Flash Player alpha for Linux on Adobe Labs. It's one of the most popular player requests, and we're happy to deliver a preview to the Linux community. More details on Tinic's blog. Why Linux first? Because they were the loudest...mostly kidding. 64-bit Linux doesn't ship with a 32-bit browser and trying to do 32-bit emulation for the player isn't that simple or a great experience. So, this time, Linux gets to be first!
Win and Mac will be in a future prerelease, and when we ship 64-bit it will be for Win, Mac and Linux at the same time.
I think I'm going to miss all those comments requesting 64-bit for Linux (ha!), but you can fill the void by filing and voting on feature requests at bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer.
Posted by ehuang at 09:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
October 20, 2008
A small improvement to our version numbering (aka Why there won't be a "Flash Player 10 Update 1")
Some people have noticed that our Flash Player 10 release last week had a "funny" version number. Funny in that the fourth digit wasn't "0" for the final release as it has been in the past.
No, it isn't a mistake -- we are using a new numbering system! Ok, not new as in totally-different, but new as in tweaked-and-better. In the Flash Player world, where backwards compatibility and legacy behavior are important, making a change like this is a big deal. Big enough that this particular change was proposed a few times until we finally felt comfortable enough to give it a shot. There are a few good reasons why we wanted this change. First, the old system, where the third digit was basically our build number, created some internal havoc. You can imagine the pain we caused to our documentation team and other internal products that had to wait until we were done to find out the final version number. The other pain was to marketing and our customers. We weren't able to version dot releases in a meaningful way, which is how we ended up with a name like "Flash Player 9 Update 3" delivering something as juicy as H.264 in a product with a 9.0.115.0 version number.
Enter the improved system that allows us to predict the final build numbers through the first three digits but takes into account that the third digit always has to increase for legacy detection scripts in the wild. For Flash Player 10, our developer builds were 10.0.10.b, betas were 10.0.11.b and release candidates/GM builds were 10.0.12.b. (b is the build number, so take note that we want you to continue to ignore the fourth digit for detection purposes.) The important information about the version is the first release of Flash Player 10 = 10.0.12.*
This new numbering system allows us to move towards more meaningful release numbering where the first, second and third digits actually mean Major, Minor, Bugfix. For example, the next bugfix or security release should jump up and use the series 10.0.20/10.0.21/10.0.22, and we can use "10.1" (e.g. 10.1.30/10.1.31/10.1.32) when we do a feature-bearing dot release instead of "Flash Player 10 Update 1." Old detection kits will continue to work, but moving forward you could detect for minor releases for a specific feature more easily. And it's not a tongue twister.
So, there is the explanation for the Flash Player Trivia files. :-)
* 10/22/08 tiny correction. The first release of 10 is actually 10.0.2.54, which ships in CS4 (because of lockdown schedules). That build is only in the tools and was never available from the player download center for users. You should update your players to the first web release of the player for development and testing.
Posted by ehuang at 03:20 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
October 15, 2008
Flash Player 10 has launched!
Flash Player 10 "Astro" has launched! Justin has a nice write up of the release here, so I won't repeat what he's already put so nicely. The player bits went live last night with the press release, and a LOT of content that you should check out.
The product page has a new look, and resources that might be useful to you:
* At-A-Glance - which is a overview of the highlights of this release. A nice little thing to leave on your boss' desk as a hint that you want to use these awesome new features...
* Datasheet - a more detailed description of this release
* Features Page with interactive demo - try out the new features live, and see what is new and enhanced in Flash Player 10
* Flash Player in Action - has a rotating pod of quotes from developers, and links to some cool Flash Player 10 content you can look at today. There are some cool 3D, sound and Pixel Bender demos to check out.
* Pixel Bender Exchange - check out and upload your own cool filters and effects
Other important product resources:
* Release Notes - check these for a list of known and fixed issues
* Support Downloads page - you can get the debug players here
* Flash Player Support Center - Check here for new tech notes and issues to be aware of
* Flash Player Bugbase - and of course...if you find any issues, or want to make a feature request please file it!
Developer Center
* Introducing Flash Player 10 - Justin's intro article has been updated with video snippets showing demos (used to be on Labs)
* Detecting Flash Player versions and embedding SWF files with SWFObject 2 - Adobe contributed to and supports SWFObject 2. We tested it with this release, and plan to make this the standard detection kit moving forward (replacing the Adobe Detection Kit)
* Security Changes in Flash Player 10 - There are a series of important articles to review here. Start with Trevor's article Understanding Security Changes in Flash Player 10, then review the Working with policy file changes in Flash Player 9 and Flash Player 10.
I started on this team four years ago right as we were launching Flash Player 8. Flash Player 9 was already in the wings - so although I have launched quite a few releases and dot releases, this is my first full player release cycle. This is an incredible release, and I am extremely proud to be a part of this amazing team. This is going to be another industry changing release, and we eagerly await the next wave of fabulous, wondrous, and innovative experiences you will create for the Web with our technology.
Posted by ehuang at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 28, 2008
Two! Four! Six! Eight! Numbers we appreciate!
I write every once in a while about Flash Player statistics, which I hope is interesting and useful for you. As product managers for Flash Player, Justin Everett-Church and I are responsible for managing and interpreting the data related to Flash Player. That data includes the penetration study, as well as player download and installation metrics. So, forgive me for bringing up old news, but I was out on vacation when the Firefox 3 Download Day happened. I was (quite happily) checked out enough to not really hear anything about it until I got back in the office this month. I understand a few Adobe folks blogged about how our Flash Player numbers were also world-record worthy, and a lot of different download numbers often show up in blogs and press without any context of time period. Is the number of daily downloads a useful metric? What do these numbers really say?
Don’t get me wrong -- I love data, and download numbers ARE interesting. But, as with any data, you need to figure out what the numbers tell you and why they are important. Adobe tends to talk about the install rate of Flash Player quite often, although it may not be the right number for people to focus on since it doesn’t give you context, and you have to take our word for it. For Firefox, the download number is interesting because they wanted to beat their numbers for the previous release, and to generate buzz for the current release by submitting it for a world record -- which was verified by a third party.
It’s interesting to note that for Adobe, the number that is quoted is an “install” and not a “download” number. We’ve never said how many downloads happen a day because it is a ridiculously large number AND we know that it’s not that useful metric because those successful downloads don’t all turn into successful installations. In July 2008, successful downloads averaged about 33 million per day, and successful installs averaged around 18 million per day. That seems like a big drop, but consider that ActiveX was about 80% of our installs that month and when you visit a page that triggers the ActiveX install experience the installer is downloaded to the machine before the security warning dialog appears. The user might say “no thanks” to the security warning dialog, and refreshing the page or visiting another page that requires a newer version may download the installer again.
How do we monitor Flash Player download and installation numbers?
We have an internal dashboard application to track the general “health” of Flash Player downloads and installs, and it can chart the data daily, weekly, monthly, etc. It uses XML feeds of our server log data from Akamai, our current CDN. The dashboard is useful in helping us 1) to understand our traffic so we can try to optimize things like install success rate, and catch problems with our installers or CDN delivery in a matter of days, and 2) get a sense of where our penetration might be in the penetration study in the next wave. The penetration study is only run once a quarter, and it’s hard to wait three months to know where we’re at.
For “Player downloads” we count the attempted and successful downloads for all the player installers we post to the CDN (based on the related HTTP status codes), such as “swflash.cab” and “install_flash_player.exe” (note these numbers aren’t unique.) We also count the number of installs, which is the sum of requests for a small text file that a newly installed player requests the first time it is launched in the browser. That number is used as an estimate – we’ve had releases where the text file request wasn’t implemented or working on certain platforms, and since it is only requested once there are a number of reasons why it might not make it all the way to the server. The install number wasn’t ever intended to be a marketing point, although it was an exciting number for us to talk about when we realized that our install average was 8 million a day shortly after Flash Player 9 first launched. The daily average has gone up since then, most likely due to increasing penetration of broadband and improvements at the CDN. And it can spike depending on whether there is a hot new site that is sweeping the web, or dip if we’ve got a CDN or installer problem.
The point is, I know it can be confusing to hear about numbers like 8, 12, 14 or 25 million daily installs when there isn’t any context in which to interpret the meaning. We don’t yet have an internal “standard” for the install number that we are quoting as a company, such as “average daily installs for the past month” or “average daily installs since the last release”, etc. Not that it really matters. The intent behind stating these VERY BIG numbers is to say something about demand. That is a big reason why we have the penetration study, and have been tracking it since Flash Player 3. I’ve talked in the past about the general aspects of the penetration data we post, and how it may or may not apply when you get down to your particular audience. As with any statistics, you should understand the methodology behind the numbers. But the good thing about that number is it is something you or another third party like Forrester, can independently test or verify -- which makes it the more interesting and important number for Flash Player.
Posted by ehuang at 02:00 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
March 10, 2008
Preparing for the upcoming April 2008 Flash Player 9 Security Update
We are planning to release a security update to Flash Player 9 in April 2008 that further mitigates previously disclosed vulnerabilities. Because these security enhancements may impact existing SWF content for some customers, we are giving advanced notice of these changes so that you have time to prepare before the player is released.
The information Adobe is providing right now is for developers, IT departments and Web administrators to better prepare for the next update to Flash Player. End users do not need to take actions at this time but should update to the latest player in April upon its release.
The Adobe Developer Connection article describes who and what types of content may be impacted, the changes, and what you should do immediately to implement any necessary changes to ensure a seamless transition when the updated Player launches.
For those of you whom the following situations apply, please read the Adobe Developer Connection article in detail:
* Use of sockets or XMLSockets, regardless of the domain the SWF is connecting to
* Use of addRequestHeader or URLRequest.requestHeaders in any network API call when sending or loading data cross-domain OR Provides access to content on remote domains as a web service provider
* Use of SWFs that are exported for Flash Player 7 (SWF7) or below that communicate with the hosting HTML by any means
* Use of '"javascript:'" through network APIs to communicate outside a SWF
Preparing for the April 2008 Flash Player 9 Security Update
For more information about Flash Player security, visit
Flash Player Security and Privacy page
Flash Player Security section of the Adobe Developer Connection
Posted by ehuang at 03:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Going on vacation
I'll be on vacation starting today through August, so my blog will be quiet through Spring/Summer. I'm going to turn off comments for now, since they're moderated and I won't be able to get to them.
To keep up to date, check:
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mxna
Justin's blog (Sr. Product Manager, Flash Player
Posted by ehuang at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 29, 2008
Flash Player 9.0.115.0 for Solaris now availalbe
Flash Player 9.0.115.0 is now available on Adobe.com for the Solaris x86 and SPARC platforms. This update also addresses the issues in Security Bulletin APSB07-20 for Solaris. The one big known issue listed in the release notes is that the full screen hardware scaling feature is not supported on SPARC platforms at this time.
Thanks to everyone who tested and provided feedback on the Adobe Labs beta!
Posted by ehuang at 04:17 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
