Adobe Pulling Plug On Unloved Shockwave Player On April 9

Adobe doesn't have the best of histories when it comes to software like Flash and Shockwave. Both have been leveraged by nefarious types to take advantage of computer users over the years. Flash is such a risk that Firefox 69 disables it by default. Adobe has announced that Flash will see the end of its life next year. Meanwhile, Shockwave will die off before then with an official end of life date announced by Adobe.

Adobe says that the end of Shockwave will be April 9, 2019. After that date, Shockwave will be discontinued, and the Shockwave Player for Windows will no longer be available for download. Adobe does note that companies with Enterprise licenses for Shockwave will receive support until their current contracts end.

Shockwave is a browser-based multimedia platform that is for interactive applications and video games. The end for Shockwave player comes about two years after the February 1, 2017 end of life for Adobe Director, which was the authoring tool for the platform. Developers can still leverage Adobe creative tools via Creative Cloud with options like Adobe Animate for authoring HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, and Flash/Adobe AIR interactive content. Adobe says that with the growth of HTML5 Canvas and Web GL, Shockwave use has declined.

Computer users who don't need Shockwave can uninstall the software. According to Avast, Shockwave is the most commonly out-of-date program installed on average computers.