Closed Bug 1106311 Opened 10 years ago Closed 9 years ago

Add Shockwave Plugin

Categories

(Plugin Check Graveyard :: Database, defect)

Product:
Plugin Check Graveyard
Component:
Database
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: espressive, Unassigned)

References

Details

Add the Adobe Shockwave plugin to the plugins database.
Assignee: nobody → schalk.neethling.bugs
No longer depends on: 1106310
Blocks: 1121456
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Why is this now INVALID?

Adobe Flash is not Adobe Shockwave.

After Schalk removed Shockwave from the Plugincheck Database, in bug 1101613,
we did have reports e.g.:

bug 1106166 "Shockwave for Director not anymore a recognized/detected/known plugin ("Unknown Plugins")"

I think that Schalk filed this bug BECAUSE, after bug 1101613, he thought
Shockwave was 'a plugin worth including in the Plugincheck Database'.


Adobe's "Security Bulletins and Advisories" page
https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html

has links to both Shockwave
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/shockwave.html

and Flash
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player.html

DJ-Leith
(In reply to DJ-Leith from comment #1)
> Why is this now INVALID?
> 
> Adobe Flash is not Adobe Shockwave.
> 
> After Schalk removed Shockwave from the Plugincheck Database, in bug 1101613,
> we did have reports e.g.:
> 
> bug 1106166 "Shockwave for Director not anymore a recognized/detected/known
> plugin ("Unknown Plugins")"
> 
> I think that Schalk filed this bug BECAUSE, after bug 1101613, he thought
> Shockwave was 'a plugin worth including in the Plugincheck Database'.
> 
> 
> Adobe's "Security Bulletins and Advisories" page
> https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html
> 
> has links to both Shockwave
> https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/shockwave.html
> 
> and Flash
> https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player.html
> 
> DJ-Leith

Are these products linked in any way or are they treated separate? It seems that they are treated separate.

If so, does flash player versions coincide with shockwave player updates or are these two distinctly separate plugins? i.e. flash player does not equal shockwave player

Does security issues in the Flash player also effect the shockwave player?

If not, and these are two distinctly separate plugins, then I reckon we need to track it, and track it as a separate plugin.
(In reply to Schalk Neethling [:espressive] from comment #2)
> Are these products linked in any way or are they treated separate? It seems
> that they are treated separate.

I think they are separate.  That is why I questioned, in comment # 1,
> Why is this now INVALID?
> 
> Adobe Flash is not Adobe Shockwave.

Schalk said, in comment # 2:
> If so, does flash player versions coincide with shockwave player update
> or are these two distinctly separate plugins? i.e. flash player does not 
> equal shockwave player

They are "two distinctly separate plugins".

3 pieces of evidence:

A. In bug 956905 comment # 127 I attached a 10 page spreadsheet (as a PDF)
https://bug956905.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8395239
showing that Adobe use different versions for 'Flash vs Shockwave'
at the same time: the spreadsheet is chronological.

For example, look at page 2 of the PDF,
on 2013-02-12
Flash (for Windows and IE) was "11.6.602.168" while
Shockwave (for Windows and IE) was "12.0.0.112".

B. (already cited in comment # 1)
> bug 1106166 "Shockwave for Director not anymore a
> recognized/detected/known plugin ("Unknown Plugins")"

Archaeopteryx, who filed bug 1106166, had BOTH Flash and Shockwave.
Shockwave Player had become "unknown" after the data had been
removed from the Plugincheck Database (more in that bug).

C. (already cited in comment # 1)
Adobe have DIFFERENT Security Bulletins for Flash and Shockwave

> has links to both Shockwave
> https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/shockwave.html
> 
> and Flash
> https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player.html

Schalk said, in comment # 2:
> ... then I reckon we need to track it, and track it as a separate plugin.
Yes, I agree.
I also agree that this bug should block bug 1121456 (as it does at the moment).
I recommend that the status of this bug is changed back to "NEW".

The potential difficulty I foresee is that if you try and
detect the plugin, of the browser that is visiting the Plugincheck Website,
using MIME type *alone* you may find it difficult to distinguish between:-

'Adobe Flash Player's plugin'
and
'Adobe Shockwave Player's plugin'.

However, the 'old plugincheck service', AFAICT *did* correctly
detect and report 'Shockwave Player' vs 'Flash Player'.

DJ-Leith
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: INVALID → ---
From comment # 3.
> However, the 'old plugincheck service', AFAICT *did* correctly
> detect and report 'Shockwave Player' vs 'Flash Player'.

See:
https://bug986819.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8395206

Here is an example screenshot, from an unrelated bug about Java plugins.
  Please ignore the 'red box around the Java plugins' - at the top.

In the "These plugins are up to date" section, you can see both:

"Shockwave for Director"
and
"Shockwave Flash" (AKA 'Adobe Flash', AKA 'Flash').

You can see that both were reported as "Up to Date"
(and they have different version numbers).

Note also, the 'Plugincheck Website' used to have
'separate logos' for Flash and Shockwave.

DJ-Leith
(In reply to DJ-Leith from comment #4)
> From comment # 3.
> > However, the 'old plugincheck service', AFAICT *did* correctly
> > detect and report 'Shockwave Player' vs 'Flash Player'.
> 
> See:
> https://bug986819.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8395206
> 
> Here is an example screenshot, from an unrelated bug about Java plugins.
>   Please ignore the 'red box around the Java plugins' - at the top.
> 
> In the "These plugins are up to date" section, you can see both:
> 
> "Shockwave for Director"
> and
> "Shockwave Flash" (AKA 'Adobe Flash', AKA 'Flash').
> 
> You can see that both were reported as "Up to Date"
> (and they have different version numbers).
> 
> Note also, the 'Plugincheck Website' used to have
> 'separate logos' for Flash and Shockwave.
> 
> DJ-Leith

Thanks for the additional info DJ, once it is added back, it should not be hard to make a distinction between the two. One of the ways the code matches the installed plugin against the known plugins is to use the name but, it inly does that if there is not regex listed for the plugin so, all that needs to happen here is that we have a regex on Flash and Shockwave so that we can look for that in the plugin.name string and not try and do an exact match.

Heck, we can even update the display name on the back-end to match what is reported in the browser but, the regex is possibly more future proof.
Heyy Matt, here is another plugin we should consider adding to the DB, we just need to make sure we have a reliable way to know of updates but, I assume Adobe will have something similar for this as they have for Flash.
Flags: needinfo?(mgrimes)
Hey Schalk. I'm game. We are creating a community forum for this project as well so that AWESOME SUMO contributors can help us to spot updates in the wild. I think that will help.
Flags: needinfo?(mgrimes)
(In reply to Matt Grimes [:Matt_G] from comment #7)
> Hey Schalk. I'm game. We are creating a community forum for this project as
> well so that AWESOME SUMO contributors can help us to spot updates in the
> wild. I think that will help.

Oh brilliant idea \o/
Hi Schalk,

I see a flurry of activity on several Plugincheck bugs
including that Plugincheck will soon be in Bedrock.

In November 2014 you Assigned yourself to this bug.

My reading of comment # 6 and comment # 7 is that
OTHERS e.g. Matt, Rachel and Joni can add this Plugin to the Database.

Two questions:

1.  Can they make progress while this bug is Assigned to Schalk?

2.  I think I provided enough information above, including in the links,
for 'the plugin to be added'.  Do you need me to add anything?

DJ-Leith
Oh, they are free to do that and are the only folks handling the DB content now, but let me set this back to NEW.

Matt, just an FYI
Assignee: schalk.neethling.bugs → nobody
Status: REOPENED → NEW
Flags: needinfo?(mgrimes)
Thanks for the nudge.

@Rachel: Let's use this as a learning opportunity for Mark this week.
Flags: needinfo?(mgrimes)
To add this back it looks like these are the last few bulletins for the player: 
https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html#shockwave
Do we back track and add all the old releases or since Adobe Flash player appears as "Adobe Flash Player, Shockwave..." that we leave it as is?
Mark, have we made any attempt to try adding a plugin on the staging site?
Flags: needinfo?(mschmidt)
I am in the process of adding these to the sandbox, someone on SUMO or someone with admin access to the database would have to push it from Sandbox to Production.
Done
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 years ago → 9 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
@Schalk & DJ:

Revisiting some of the discussion above regarding the names for Flash, you might or might not recall that Macromedia (Shockwave) was bought out by Adobe some time ago.  Externally, the product is known as Adobe Flash Player or similar, but the internal name -- as displayed by FF's "More" when you display plugins -- has always been "Shockwave Flash".  You can see this text embedded in the DLL.

The following was copied from here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/920072
(See last comments at bottom, following a tedious argument of what the Flash names are...)

--- start of copy/paste ---
The names of plugins are set by the plugins themselves. Have you ever noticed that the usual file extension for Flash media is .swf ?

I've been running Firefox since version 1, and the Netscape Browser previous to that.  Macromedia originally developed and named these two plugins, and Adobe bought Macromedia.  For a while they were Shockwave Flash and Shockwave for Director, respectively.  I suppose that the "internal" names of the software as identified in some way by Firefox remain the original ones and Adobe has never changed them internally.    

Adobe continued to develop the features and function of Shockwave Flash and re-branded it Adobe Flash Player.  It has become universally identified as such by users, regardless of how Firefox identifies it.  The HTML 5 standard has a "video player" included and some folks regard Adobe Flash Player as obsolete.  But it seems to me that the vast majority of websites are still coded with previous versions of HTML, and Adobe Flash Player is still used to render their pages (at least when it is available to the browser), whether it is always necessary to use it.

As to Shockwave for Director, Adobe has re-branded it to Adobe Shockwave Player.  It has rarely been used by any websites that I can recall, except for a game website that used it for about half of the games which they offered.
--- end of copy/paste ---


That should clear the air a bit...
Flags: needinfo?(mschmidt)
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