What is difference between Shockwave Player and Flash Player?

[FlashPlayerStruggler]

Can anybody tell the difference?

.

Seems Adobe has many Web Players.

Why they wants to confuse their users when they could have various types (plug-in, standalone, debug) of single player which has it all.

[pwillener]

Shockwave Player: see http://www.adobe.com/products/shockwaveplayer/

Flash Player: see http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

The standard installation for most users is the browser add-on to view web content.

To view local content you will need the standalone player.

Developers will need the debug player to debug their content.

[jayarjo]

Not that it totally clarifies the case, but here's what the resource over here tells:

Flash and Shockwave Players are both free Web Players from Adobe. Together, they bring you the best rich media content on the Internet. Each has a distinct purpose. Flash Player delivers fast loading front-end Web applications, high-impact Web site user interaction, interactive online advertising, and short to medium form animation. Shockwave Player displays destination Web content such as interactive multimedia product demos and training, e-merchandising applications, and rich-media multiuser games. When you download Shockwave Player, it automatically includes Adobe Flash Player.

[Guest · Accepted solution]

Per http://helpx.adobe.com/shockwave/kb/shockwave-player-faq.html,

"Q: The difference between the Adobe Shockwave and Flash Players?

A: Shockwave Player displays content created with Adobe Director 11.5 software such as high-performance multiuser games, interactive 3D product simulations, online entertainment, and training applications. By using extensions, developers can extend the capabilities of Shockwave Player to play back custom-built applications.

Flash Player displays content created with Flash Professional CS5. This content includes web applications, website user interfaces, interactive online advertising, and rich Internet applications (RIAs) created using Flex."

[TharosTheDragon]

If Shockwave and Flash are two separate things, then what is Shockwave Flash? Is it Shockwave or Flash?

[_maria_]

While Shockwave Player and Flash Player are 2 different things, Shockwave Flash and Flash Player are the same.  It's a long story and comes from the history of Flash Player and a series of acquisitions that eventually led to Macromedia purchasing the company that developed Shockwave Player Flash and it being renamed to Flash Player.  Since the product had been named Shockwave PlayerFlash, browsers already identified it as such, and in some areas (e.g. registry setting, and other metadata used by browsers to identify plugins) it continues to be referred to as Shockwave Player Flash in some areas.  However, the actual name of the product is Flash Player, which should not be confused with Shockwave Player.

<edit> fixing typos: With the exception of the first mention of Shockwave Player, all other instances of Shockwave Player are supposed to be Shockwave Flash

[TharosTheDragon]

Thanks for the reply. But if Shockwave Player was renamed to Flash Player, how can Shockwave Player and Flash Player be 2 different things?

[_maria_]

Sorry, that was an error on my part. With the exception of the first mention of Shockwave Player, all other instances are supposed to be Shockwave Flash, not Shockwave Player.  I have edited my previous comment to be 'Shockwave Flash'.

For more information, see:

• Adobe Shockwave Player
• Adobe Flash Player

[TharosTheDragon]

Okay, that makes sense. So did Shockwave Player also exist when Flash Player was still called Shockwave Flash?

[_maria_]

I'm sorry, I don't have that information, and I'm not aware of an adobe.com site that has it curated.  If you're interested, the following may be helpful:

• Adobe Director - Wikipedia
• Adobe Shockwave Player - Wikipedia
• Adobe Flash Player - Wikipedia
• Macromedia - Wikipedia
• FutureWave Software - Wikipedia