Flash 11.3 to bring protected mode for Firefox

Adobe's Flash Player 11.3, currently in its third beta release, will introduce a protected mode for Firefox users on Windows Vista or later. Adobe says the mode, also known as a sandbox, is comparable to the protected mode that the player uses when running with Google Chrome, the Protected Mode in Adobe Reader, or the Office 2010 Protected View. It is designed to restrict how attacks from malicious SWF files can impact the safe operation of the Flash Player. It is hoped this will reduce the use of Flash as a springboard to introduce malicious code on systems. Despite the protected mode possibly causing problems with some existing Flash content, Adobe asks users to keep it enabled at all times.

Another security enhancement in Flash Player 11.3 will be background updating for Mac OS X systems. The feature, introduced for Windows in Flash Player 11.2, will allows a background service to regularly check for Flash Player updates and, if present, download and silently install them. The user can disable this behaviour if they so wish and manually update Flash Player instead. The updater functionality is "temporarily disabled" in the beta release, according to the release notes.

Other changes in Flash Player 11.3 include full screen support for keyboard input, low latency audio support for streaming audio and the Sound API, texture streaming and, for Android developers, stylus support in Android 4.0. Flash Player 11.3 is expected to be launched before the end of June. The beta is available to download for Windows and Mac OS X.

(djwm)