To coincide with the release of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Beta yesterday, which comes in both 32 and 64-bit varieties, Adobe has released Flash Player 64-bit Beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

The move brings complete 64-bit browsing one step closer, with 64-bit versions of Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome available on select platforms.

There are currently several known issues with the public preview:

• Video playback issues may appear on certain websites such as Hulu.com, Audi.co.uk, and nbc.com.
• Mouse interactivity in the Settings UI dialog does not work using Internet Explorer 9. Keyboard navigation works as expected. Please pardon our dust.
• Internet Explorer 9 is not yet final. As such, Adobe is continuing to work with Microsoft to resolve critical issues before the final release of Internet Explorer 9.
• This release will not receive automatic update notifications, and users will need to manually uninstall this preview before installing a standard shipping release of Flash Player

Adobe Flash Player “Square” 64-bit can be downloaded form the Adobe Labs.

Google Chrome 5.0.375.126 has been pushed to the stable channel today, bringing with it only a single change.

The latest release contains an updated version of Adobe Flash, fixing several security vulnerabilities to the plugin.

Chrome users for all platforms will receive the update within the next few days, or alternatively the browser can be downloaded from the Google Chrome website.

The Google Chrome development team have been hard at work, and have just integrated portable document format (PDF) support to their browser.

The comes on the back of an integrated Flash player, which has seen improved performance and stability within the browser.

“Millions of web users rely on PDF files every day to consume a wide variety of text and media content. The traditional browser plug-in model, though powerful, presents challenges in compatibility, performance, and security. To overcome this, we’ve been working with the web community to help define a next generation browser plug-in API” wrote Marc Pawliger, Chrome Engineering Director.

Chrome Dev Channel release 6.0.437.3 now includes built in PDF support. Users can get this version by following the instructions on the Chromium website.

Hulu developers have come out describing HTML5 as not ready to deliver video content, and that Adobe’s Flash still reigns supreme.

“When it comes to technology, our only guiding principle is to best serve the needs of all of our key customers: our viewers, our content partners who license programs to us, our advertisers, and each other. We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn’t yet meet all of our customers’ needs. Our player doesn’t just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren’t necessarily visible to the end user. Not all video sites have these needs, but for our business these are all important and often contractual requirements” wrote Eugene Wei, VP of Product at Hulu.

With Apple putting all its eggs in the HTML5 basket, it seems others aren’t so sure. Adobe’s concerns appear valid, and today launched its We Love Choice campaign.

“At Adobe, we believe that the open flow of creativity, ideas, and information should be limited only by the imagination. Innovation thrives when people are free to choose the technologies that enable them to openly express themselves and access information where and when they want. Everyone loses when technological barriers impede the exchange of ideas” the campaign says.

It’s clear the HTML5 vs Flash debate is far from over.

Opera has entered the Adobe Flash vs HTML5 debate, siding with Apple stating that “flash as a video container makes very little sense”.

Phillip Grønvold, Product Analyst at Opera gave an interview with TechRadar this week and shared his thoughts on the debate.

“Today’s internet content is dependant on Flash, if you remove Flash you do not have today’s internet. We are trying to give the best internet experience for our users therefore we need Flash – there is no way to beat around that bush.”

“But at Opera we say that the future of the web is open web standards and Flash is not an open web standards technology” continued Grønvold.

Grønvold believes that Adobe will need to change, and embrace HTML5 technologies or face more embracing war-of-words like we have seen between Adobe and Apple’s Steve Jobs.

For more details be sure to read the full interview at TechRadar.

The Chrome development team have today announced a new partnership with Adobe which bundles Adobe’s Flash with Google Chrome browser.

The latest development builds include Adobe Flash Player 10.1.51.95 (10.1 beta 3), and allows Chrome users to receive updated Flash updates automatically without the need of user intervention.

“The traditional browser plug-in model has enabled tremendous innovation on the web, but it also presents challenges for both plug-ins and browsers. The browser plug-in interface is loosely specified, limited in capability and varies across browsers and operating systems. This can lead to incompatibilities, reduction in performance and some security headaches” explains Google.

This move will ensure participating plug-ins are always up to date, increasing browsers security, while also integrating plug-ins tighter within the browser ensuring they become more stable.

Mozilla is also in on the plan, with Google using Mozilla’s next generation browser plug-in API. Other plug-ins such as Adobe’s PDF reader are expected to come further down the track.

Adobe’s Flash Player can be found from today with today’s dev channel update for Chrome; version 5.0.360.4 for Windows and Mac and 5.0.360.5 for Linux.

Adobe has come out saying that it is confident that Apple will eventually cave and allow Flash to make it onto the iPhone.

“Our goal is to provide a consistent runtime that spans devices, inclusive of [mobile and] desktop operating systems,” said Flash marketing director Adrian Ludwig at this weeks Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Adobe is currently working on providing Flash on devices powered by Windows Mobile, Android, Palm WebOS, Symbian, and BlackBerry OS powered devices, delivering parity with the desktop versions of Flash.

“I suspect what will happen is that as we have more devices in the market… Apple will have more market pressure to include Flash on the iPhone,” said head of Adobe’s platform business David Wadhwani.

“Apple would like to move rich content off the web and into its App Store, where it can more readily monetise it….Ultimately, the consumer will decide.”

Adobe has a version of Flash ready to go for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad, but is being blocked by Apple from getting low-level access to the iPhone that’s necessary to properly implement Flash.

Whether Adobe’s prediction will come true remains to still be seen, only time will tell.

Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has told Germans to avoid using any version of Internet Explorer after a security vulnerability lead to attacks against Google, Adobe, and other large organisations last week.

Microsoft has hit back at claims, noting that the attacks could be avoided if the security zone settings were set to high.

“Using Internet Explorer in ‘secure mode’, as well as turning off Active Scripting, makes attacks more difficult but can not fully prevent them,” BSI said in a further statement.

Microsoft has acknowledged the vulnerability, which is present in all versions of Internet Explorer, including IE8 on Windows 7.

Microsoft is expected to release a patch in the coming weeks.

Mozilla is set to extend its new plugin check feature, which debuted in Firefox 3.5.3 and would check on first run if Adobe Flash player was up to date.

The feature which was so successful, is expected to be expanded in Firefox 3.6, covering other plugins such as Adobe Shockwave Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and Java.

While not fool-proof, it’s certainly a forward step for browser security. More information on the plugin check feature can be found on the Mozilla blog.

Adobe has announced that its Flash platform is coming to Internet-linked television sets, set-top boxes and Blu-ray players.

The move would give viewers the ability to watch YouTube, Hulu and Netflix right from their living rooms.

“Consumers are looking to access their favourite Flash technology-based videos, applications, services and other rich Web content across screens” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit.

At this stage, there is still no release date, or idea of which manufacturers will be jumping on board.