Is the Shockwave software safe?
Shockwave is written by Adobe, one of the most trusted names on the web. Adobe has two other plugins you may also be familiar with, Flash and Acrobat Reader, each with users numbering in the 10s of millions. That said, computers are complex environments and no software, no matter how well debugged, is perfect, but Adobe does have good support for their products with a link available on the download page.