Tag: beta

Google Chrome and Flash

On Monday I blogged about Shockwave Flash crashing in Google Chrome 10.

Reassuringly/disappointingly I wasn’t the only person to experience this annoyance. PC Pro published an article on Tuesday: Chrome update takes out Flash. The article highlighted a couple of things that I hadn’t realised:

  1. Google was now ‘sandboxing’ Flash; in other words, any issues experienced with a particular website that uses Flash (e.g. malware) doesn’t spread beyond the tab that is running it.
  2. The Adobe Flash plugin was crashing when there were multiple instances of Flash on a page.

The Google Chrome support forum has been a busy place of late, and I’ve been keeping a close eye on the thread entitled Chrome 10 – Flash Crashes.

Google Chrome channels

One piece of advise was to try the developer channel of Google Chrome.

Google run three release channels of Chrome:

  1. Stable
  2. Beta
  3. Developer

I generally run the Beta channel as it tends to receive the latest features a couple of weeks before Stable does.

And sure enough, now that I’m running the dev channel version of Chrome the issue with Flash has gone.

chrome-10.0.648.134

Above: Google Chrome 10.0.648.134 beta which I’ve been having problems with.

chrome-11.0.696.12-dev

Above: Google Chrome 11.0.696.12 dev which I’ve so far had no Flash crashes with.

I really love that the image on the About Google Chrome screen on the dev channel shows that it’s not quite as polished and shiny a version as beta. Nice touch.

Battlefield Play4Free closed beta

Battlefield Play4Free
Battlefield Play4Free closed beta invitation

Look what email dropped into my inbox the other day: an invitation to the Battlefield Play4Free closed beta.  (I’ve obviously edited the image to remove my “personal beta key”.)

I signed up there and and then and over the course of the next couple of hours I…

According to the Beta Testing Agreement I’m allowed to disclose only two things about it:

  1. The fact that there is an official Beta Program for the Game.
  2. The fact that you are a member of the official Beta Program for the Game.

Okay.  There is an official beta programme for Battlefield Play4Free.  I am a member of that official beta programme.  Am I not even allowed to say that I quite like it?

The Battlefield Play4Free Facebook page will tell you more, though.