Adobe has announced it will end offering and supporting Shockwave and Shockwave Player later this year. Shockwave can be considered the predecessor of Flash and is used for interactive applications and games both online using a browser plugin, and on e.g. CD-ROM and DVD. The software is installed on more than 450 million desktops worldwide, according to numbers from Adobe.
On the 9th of April this year, Adobe will stop with Shockwave after which the Shockwave Player for Windows will no longer be offered for download. From that date, Adobe will also no longer provide support for the software. Companies with a business license for Shockwave will continue to receive support until the end of their contract.
The biggest reason for Adobe to stop with Shockwave is the demise in usage and the availability and popularity of new technologies like HTML5.
Research from antivirus vendor Avast, where the company analyzed 163 million computers, shows that Adobe Shockwave player is not up-to-date on 96% of the devices. This likely mainly caused because users have to manually update the software.
