about Adobe's Shockwave Player

[Marcus]

Can I ask a quick question please.

What do you use Shockwave player for? I understand that from Adobe's site it's used to play files created with their Director software (unless I misread that) but what else do you use it for?

I don't have this on my laptop although I do have the Flashplayer active X. I'm just wondering which of the two would be used to watch, say, a company presentation, a tutorial, a product demonstration or maybe a webinar - that sort of thing.

I've never come across a notification / message/dialog box that has indicated I need Adobe's Shockwave player to open a given file so I was wondering what others use it for.

[exile360]

It's used for viewing some online content and playing certain online games, but most of the time such content is built on Flash or Java. Shockwave used to be much more common than it is these days so it's tough to find anything online that actually requires it any more.

[Marcus]

Okay. Thanks for that information, Exile, .

I won't download and install it then if that's the case.

[exile360]

Yeah, I used to install it whenever I installed Windows, just like Flash Player, but over time I realized that all the Shockwave content was disappearing so I stopped installing it long ago and I haven't needed it in all that time.

[Jacktivity]

Hi Marcus,

I posted a little more information a while back in this post.

I still install both, but I think Exile360 is right about Shockwave for Director falling off in popularity.

[Marcus]

Thanks for that, Jacktivity. That is useful background information; I didn't know about that thread.

You would think that a company with a reputation for technical innovation and cleverness would've named those two "players" sufficiently clearly so as to minimize potential for confusion for us all. [Just my two cents' worth this Easter Monday ].

Pedant hard at work here