The recent PlayStation 3 firmware update has made many improvements to the PlayStation 3 System Software, and especially the Internet Browser. It’s taken some time, but Adobe Flash Player 9 has finally been integrated into the PS3. Some would argue that it’s a little too late as Adobe Flash Player 10 is now available to download. According to IGN, "Sony has actually been working on Flash 9 support for quite some time — as far back as late last year. To get it running on the PS3, Sony ended up customizing a separate Flash implementation that was provided to it by Adobe."
IGN also reports:
"For a sense of how computationally intensive some areas of Flash 9 can be, you need only consider this little bit. According to Takase, the PS3 implementation of Flash-based playback for H.264 videos makes use of an SPU. This allows for loading up of web pages to be separate from video playback, improving framerate.
The entire web experience on the PS3 has been improved with the new firmware update. Noda cited a 2.8 times increase in Javascript speed according to Sony’s own benchmarks. Takase believes PS3’s Javascript performance, while not up to the level of Google Chrome, beats Internet Explorer 7."
[Via: IGN]