Adobe will retire Shockwave next month, as part of a long-term plan that will also include the demise of other products.
In a technical support document published in late February, Adobe explains that while Shockwave will stop being released on April 9, 2019, businesses will continue to receive support according to their contracts.
The company explains that the abandonment of Shockwave is the result of the shrinking of the existing user base, especially as the majority of customers are switching to alternatives.
“As technologies have evolved and the use of mobile devices has increased, interactive content has moved to platforms like HTML5 Canvas and Web GL, and the use of Shockwave has declined,” he says.
The decision to withdraw Shockwave from the market is not a big surprise, and Adobe explains that it has already discontinued related technologies in previous years.
“Adobe has issued a notice to help customers prepare for the change. The discontinuation of Shockwave for Windows is the final step in a multi-year process: Adobe Director, a Shockwave content creation tool, was discontinued on February 1, 2017, and Shockwave for macOS was discontinued on March 1, 2017,” Adobe notes.
What's important to know is that Shockwave won't just disappear one day. Even though Adobe itself set the retirement deadline, Shockwave will live on for a little while longer and the platform will continue to work on the devices it was installed on.
However, the official download links will no longer be available, so it will not be possible to install Shockwave on new computers. Of course, third-party sources will still host the installers, although sooner or later, everyone will just have to switch from Shockwave to alternative products that still receive support.
In addition to Shockwave, Adobe is also preparing to stop releasing Flash Player next year.
