Adobe Shockwave Player
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Original author(s) | Macromedia |
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Developer(s) | Adobe Systems |
Stable release | 12.2.5.195
/ 20 September 2016[1] |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS 9, macOS (Universal) |
Platform | Web browsers |
Type | Multimedia Player / MIME type: application/x-director |
License | Proprietary[2] |
Website | www |
Adobe Shockwave Player (formerly Macromedia Shockwave Player) is a freeware software plug-in for viewing multimedia and video games in web pages, content created on the Adobe Shockwave platform. Content is developed with Adobe Director and published on the Internet. Such content can be viewed in a web browser on any computer with the Shockwave Player plug-in installed. It was first developed by Macromedia, and released in 1995 and was later acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005.[3]
Shockwave Player runs DCR files published by the Adobe Director environment. Shockwave Player supports raster graphics, basic vector graphics, 3D graphics, audio, and an embedded scripting language called Lingo.[4][5] Hundreds of free online video games were developed using Shockwave, and published on websites such as Miniclip and Shockwave.com.[6]
As of July 2011, a survey found that Flash Player had 99% market penetration in desktop browsers in "mature markets" (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand), while Shockwave Player claimed only 41% in these markets.[7] As of 2015, Flash Player is a suitable alternative to Shockwave Player, with its 3D rendering capabilities and object-oriented programming language. Flash Player cannot display Shockwave content, and Shockwave Player cannot display Flash content.[8]
History
The Shockwave player was originally developed for the Netscape browser by Macromedia Director team members Harry Chesley, John Newlin, Sarah Allen, and Ken Day, influenced by a previous plug-in that Macromedia had created for Microsoft's Blackbird. Version 1.0 of Shockwave was released independent of Director 4 and its development schedule has since coincided with the release of Director since version 5[citation needed]. Its versioning also has since been tied to Director's and thus there were no Shockwave 2-4 releases.
- Shockwave 1
- The Shockwave plug-in for Netscape Navigator 2.0 was released in 1995, along with the standalone Afterburner utility to compress Director files for Shockwave playback. The first large-scale multimedia site to use Shockwave was Intel's 25th Anniversary of the Microprocessor.[9]
- Shockwave 5
- Afterburner is integrated into the Director 5.0 authoring tool as an Xtra.
- Shockwave 6
- Added support for Shockwave Audio (swa) which consisted of the emerging MP3 file format with some additional headers.
- Shockwave 7
- Added support for linked media including images and casts.
- Added support for Shockwave Multiuser Server.
- Shockwave 8.5
- Added support for Intel's 3D technologies including rendering.
- Shockwave 9
- Shockwave 10
- Last version to support Mac OS X 10.3 and lower, and Mac OS 9.
- Shockwave 11
- Added support for Intel-based Macs.
- Shockwave 12
- Shockwave 12.1
- It is supported by 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8. It has content made from previous versions as well as Director MX 2004. From version 12.1.5.155 Shockwave is supported in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.[10]
Platform support
Shockwave is available as a plug-in for the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Windows for most of its history. However, there was a notable break in support for the Macintosh between January 2006 (when Apple Inc. released Apple–Intel transition based on the Intel Core Duo) and March 2008 (when Adobe Systems released Shockwave 11, the first version to run natively on Intel Macs).
Unlike Flash Player, Shockwave Player is not at all available for Linux or Solaris despite intense lobbying efforts. However, the Shockwave Player can be installed on Linux with CrossOver or by running a Windows version of a supported browser in Wine (with varying degrees of success). It is also possible to use Shockwave in the native Linux version of FireFox by using the Pipelight plugin, which is based on a modified version of Wine.
Security
Some security experts advise users to uninstall Adobe Shockwave Player because "it bundles a component of Adobe Flash that is more than 15 months behind on security updates, and which can be used to backdoor virtually any computer running it", in the words of Brian Krebs. This opinion is based on research by Will Dormann, who goes on to say that Shockwave is architecturally flawed because it contains a separate version of the Flash runtime that is updated much less often than Flash itself.[11] Additionally Krebs writes that "Shockwave has several modules that don’t opt in to trivial exploit mitigation techniques built into Microsoft Windows, such as SafeSEH."[12][13]
Branding and name confusion
In an attempt to raise its brand profile, all Macromedia players prefixed Shockwave to their names in the late 1990s. Although this campaign was successful and helped establish Shockwave Flash as a multimedia plugin,[citation needed] Shockwave and Flash became more difficult to maintain as separate products. In 2005, Macromedia marketed three distinct browser player plugins under the brand names Macromedia Authorware, Macromedia Shockwave, and Macromedia Flash.
Macromedia also released a web browser plug-in for viewing Macromedia FreeHand files online. It was branded Macromedia Shockwave for FreeHand and displayed specially compressed .fhc Freehand files.[14]
Later, with the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe Systems slowly began to rebrand all products related to Shockwave.[clarification needed]
See also
References
- ^ "Adobe Shockwave Player". 2015-02-12. Retrieved 2015-02-12.
- ^ Adobe Software License Agreement. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
- ^ Elia, Eric (1996). "Macromedia unveils Shockwave and Director 5". HyperMedia Communications. ISSN 1060-7188. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
- ^ Macromedia Shockwave for Director User's Guide, Volume 1, New Riders Pub., 01-Jan-1996
- ^ Macromedia Shockwave for Director, Volume 1, Hayden Books, 1996
- ^ Shockwave.com
- ^ "Flash content reaches 99% of Internet viewers". Adobe. Archived from the original on October 2, 2011. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
{{cite web}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/faq.html
- ^ Intel's 25th Anniversary of the Microprocessor at the Wayback Machine (archived January 3, 1997)
- ^ "LANDESK Patch News Bulletin: Adobe has Released Shockwave Player Version 12.1.1.151(executable install) for Windows 24-APR-2014". Landesk. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
- ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/23/shockwave_shocker_movie_box_riddled_with_0day_archive_of_antiquity/
- ^ http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/05/why-you-should-ditch-adobe-shockwave/
- ^ http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/05/adobe-shockwave-bundles-flash-thats-15-months-behind-on-security-fixes/
- ^ Perry Board; Rick Luna; Derek O'Dell (1996). "Chapter 20 - Shockwave for Freehand". Creating Shockwave Web Pages. Que Corporation. ISBN 0-7897-0903-1. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
External links
- Adobe Shockwave Player
- Adobe.com/shockwave/welcome - Test (and check versions of) your Shockwave and Flash plugins
- Adobe.com/Technote[permanent dead link]Adobe.com/Technote using The Wayback Machine[dead link] - What's the difference between Shockwave and Flash? (dated 2004)
- How Stuff Works - The Difference Between Flash and Shockwave