Still No 64-Bit Flash Player?

Hmmm there is no 64-bit Flash Player available yet for Windows and Mac. Adobe is still testing the alpha version of the 64-bit Flash Player on Linux. From Adobe: “Release of this alpha version of 64-bit Flash Player on Linux is the first step in delivering upon Adobe’s commitment to make Flash Player native 64-bit across platforms.”

Of course, Silverlight is (at least, as of February) still developing their 64-bit plug-in as well.

Since users are starting to discover this issue, is it wise to try and detect for would-be multimedia viewers using a 64-bit browser? There’s a nice JavaScript example at the IEBlog decoding user-agent strings (window.navigator.userAgent) to illustrate this concept. Even though “browser sniffing” is an inexact science that is what currently happens on Adobe or Silverlight download pages – 64-bit browsers are redirected to another page.

I wonder how many users this affects? According to an article by PC Magazine Windows 7 and Vista default to the 32 Bit version for most users.

*

Adobe AIR is unaffected, at least. From the Adobe FAQ: “AIR is a native application runtime and currently supports 64-bit platforms as a 32-bit process. AIR is not a browser plug-in, so 64-bit support is not essential for it to function on 64-bit operating systems.”