Adobe Shockwave will soon be a thing of the past. And most people will agree that this is long overdue. Shockwave is old technology, and with the majority of people having moved onto newer and better alternatives, Adobe has decided Shockwave's time is up.

What Is Adobe Shockwave?

Adobe Shockwave is a browser-based multimedia platform used to create interactive applications. To view the content, users need to install the Shockwave player. Shockwave was popular through the 90s and 00s, but has now been superseded by new technologies.

Adobe states that killing Shockwave and the Shockwave player for Windows is "the last step in a multi-year process". Which is borne out by the fact that both Adobe Director and the Shockwave player for macOS were both discontinued in 2017.

Adobe Shockwave Is No More

Now, as first reported by Ghacks, Adobe is killing Shockwave altogether, citing the fact that "usage of Shockwave has declined". Therefore, Adobe is discontinuing Shockwave (the platform) and removing the Shockwave player for Windows.

According to Adobe Support, on April 9, 2019, "Shockwave will be discontinued and the Shockwave player for Windows will no longer be available for download. Enterprise customers "will continue to receive support until the end of their current contracts."

The end of Shockwave means Adobe is focusing on its Creative Cloud instead. And the company cites the use of "Adobe Animate CC for authoring interactive content for multiple platforms, such [as] HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, Flash/Adobe AIR, and others".

Good Riddance to Shockwave

With the number of websites that now use it being so low, it's time for Shockwave to go. And because of the constant need to update Shockwave, and the security issues that constantly arose, we're not sorry to see the back of this Adobe plugin.

Shockwave isn't the only Adobe plugin being killed off either. As we reported in 2017, Adobe is killing Flash in 2020. Flash will eventually go away 10 years after Steve Jobs campaigned for it to die. But sadly, Flash outlived the Apple founder himself.

Image Credit: Toshiyuki IMAI/Flickr