Adobe launches 'Square' Flash Player preview, adds IE9 & 64-bit OS support

Coinciding with Microsoft's launch of the Internet Explorer 9 beta, Adobe today rolled out a preview version of a new Flash Player it's calling "Square."

Because of the hot demand for a native 64-bit Flash Player, Square adds to the existent Linux 64-bit version by offering support for both Windows and Mac OS. Adobe says users of the previous 64-bit Flash Player for Linux will find this version to be faster and more reliable.

Of course, the big news with this preview is its integration with Internet Explorer 9, which Adobe says has been in development with the IE team for the last few months. Square capitalizes on the new hardware-accelerated graphics feature to deliver a Flash Player that performs as much as 35% faster than previous versions.

In the Adobe team blog today, Paul Betlem said, "These new versions are fully functional, so all content should be compatible. We've found 'Square' to be stable and ready for broad testing, but keep in mind this [is] a sneak peak and not everything will be fully baked." Even still, since this is a preview version, it is not recommended that users install it on production machines.

Adobe Flash Player "Square" can be downloaded now in Adobe Labs.