Shockwave for Director plugin

[BrooksNYC]

Good morning. I'm running Firefox 15.0.1 on WinXP.

Am on my Add-ons Manager > Plugins page, looking over the list of plugins......

Among the disabled plugins are two different versions of "Shockwave for Director." The plugin is described in smaller print as "Adobe Shockwave for Director Netscape plugin."

1. Why do I have Netscape plugins in Firefox?
2. Seeing as they're disabled (by default, apparently, since I never disabled them), is it possible to uninstall them completely?

For the record the plugin version numbers are 11.6.7.637, and 11.6.5.635.

Thanks very much for your help.

[JayhawksRock]

Uninstall Shockwave for Director in Windows add / remove programs

[BrooksNYC]

Hi, JayHawks. Thanks for helping me again.

Shockwave for Director is nowhere to be found in Add/Remove Programs. I may uninstall Adobe Shockwave Player, and see if the Director plugins vamoose with it.

I honestly don't get what Netscape plugins are doing on my computer. It's like finding a couple of strange drunks passed out on the kitchen floor.

[JayhawksRock]

There are a number of programs installed in Windows that have included Netscape in the Description of the plugin even though the plugin is current. Just a hangover from the early days. The plugin name itself for most plugins start with np ie; npswf32.dll for Flash np = netscape plugin.

[the-edmeister]

Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) is a cross-platform plugin architecture used by many web browsers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI

[BrooksNYC]

There are a number of programs installed in Windows that have included Netscape in the Description of the plugin

Ah, thank you both. That explains the alien Netscape presence.

SO......I uninstalled Adobe Shockwave Player, and the offending Shockwave For Director plugins vanished into the sunset. Adios, campers!

What didn't vanish was the Shockwave Player plugin, which surprised me, since I'd have thought all traces of Shockwave would have disappeared. In any case, I manually removed the plugin, as per these instructions:

http://tinyurl.com/93v3qch

I may end up having to reinstall something, since a couple of sites are telling me that "Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page." Having evicted the Netscape plugins, it certainly will be humorous if I'm forced to invite them back.

Stay tuned.

[LIMPET235]

FYI,

The Flash plugin is also referred to as "Shockwave Flash", it should not be confused with the Shockwave plugin that handles "Shockwave for Director" content.

For ref; > http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash
& note that there are 2 versions.
One for IE, (Active x) & the "plain" one for most everything else.

[BrooksNYC]

Thank you, LIMPET, and yes!

What I've learned:

The Shockwave Flash plugin and Adobe Flash Player are not separate entities. I ended up having to reinstall Adobe Flash Player, which installed the Shockwave Flash plugin in Firefox.

The GOOD news is that the Netscape goons haven't returned. Should they stumble onto your lawn, shoot first and ask questions later.

Again, thank you all for your help.

[patrickjdempsey]

All web-browsers except for IE use Netscape-style plugins. The Netscape name remains because it's a convention. Also, Firefox is actually descended from Netscape browser code.

I've never understood why Adobe calls their Flash Player plugin Shockwave when every human being on the planet knows it as Flash. Again, weird naming conventions.

[BrooksNYC]

The Netscape name remains......Adobe calls their Flash Player plugin Shockwave when every human being on the planet knows it as Flash.

To the above ingredients, add one bewildered old man (hi!), stir briskly, and let the games begin.

There's got to be a simpler solution. Anyone know if you can send and receive email from a Ouija board?

[toolz0]

I noticed a serious performance problem after the most recent update to Firefox (27.0.1). Disabling "shockwave for director" fixed the problem.

[Gingerbread Man]

I noticed a serious performance problem after the most recent update to Firefox (27.0.1). Disabling "shockwave for director" fixed the problem.

The most recent version is 28.0. You're missing out on security patches.
http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/
https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html

Shockwave for Director only sees small use, primarily for some games and online learning tools. Most people don't need it.

I've never understood why Adobe calls their Flash Player plugin Shockwave when every human being on the planet knows it as Flash.

Macromedia slapped "Shockwave" on all their players to raise their brand profile. Adobe can't very well rename the most popular plug-in on the Internet now, at least not without breaking every plug-in detection script on the web.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Shockwave#Branding_and_name_confusion

[DanRaisch]

Thanks for your report but you've replied to a thread that's been dead going on two years.

Locking this due to the age of the original posts.