Adobe has officially released its Air development tool to the public.

Air allows developers to create rich internet applications which function over the web and locally on a user's PC.

"This is an exciting time for Adobe," said Kevin Lynch, Adobe's chief technology officer.

Several companies have released Air-based applications to coincide with the launch, including eBay, AOL and Salesforce.

Yahoo has announced plans to develop an Air-based tool which allows users to edit streaming video and webcam feeds and repost them online.

"We have built this from the ground up to serve as a tool to broadcasters, remixers and developers," said Michael Quoc, director of advanced products at Yahoo. "Our goal is to give them a platform to create their own live video experiences."

However, Symantec researcher Hon Lau warned in a blog posting that Air could also become a powerful tool for malware authors.

"When you combine its file system capabilities with the ability to make remote networking requests to download content you can quite easily see the potential for danger," wrote Lau.

"For example, it is quite possible for somebody to write a malicious application to run in Air, downloading code remotely or engaging in other nefarious activities such as denial of service attacks or stealing information. "