It rather depends on what you are trying to do.

• disable shockwave Tools -> Add-ons -> | plugins

If the problem is that you are trying to use shockwve and it is crashing some troubleshooting info is

• Fix common audio and video issues
• Using the Shockwave plugin with Firefox

it may be worth looking at those articles they may be of interest.

It would help if you provide more information such as

• do you see an error message? if so exactly what is it?
• do you only get this problem when using shockwave?
• are you able to give an example of a site/url that causes this problem?

Thank you for responding. This plugin crashes every time I am using facebook games, viewing youtube videos, it also has crashed simply opening a web page. often I will get a message saying "program not responding", immediately followed by a window that say's a plugin, shockwave flash has crashed do you want to end this now. Also I will get a window that says a script on this page is not responding. I have attempted to follow the trouble shooting suggestions to no avail, it is just as bad using google chrome. Thank you for your help

IMO, the problem is with the latest Flash 10.2 r152 version, but it might help if you can right-click a Flash presentation and disable the hardware acceleration setting in Flash.

Otherwise, my personal advice is to get rid of that version and re-install Flash 10.1 r102, that didn't seem to be causing anywhere as many forum threads about Flash crashing. You can get it here:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14266.html

Another tip is to check video card drivers are up to date "Troubleshooting and Reporting Flash Player video issues { http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/839/cpsid_83952.html ] " explains how to do that, and for further support this

My 10.2.152.32 works reasonably well on an old XP , but I do not turn on the Hardware Acceleration

my God ! had this problem too, but the following solution on some web site did the job for me:

• Run Reginout scan for active-x, file associations and other registry errors largely behind such crashes. http://www.filetransit.com/download.php?id=79029

• Try to uninstall the current flash player version. (Read this official guide to uninstall flash plugin: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

• Use official uninstaller tool to remove all flash elements from your computer.

• After completing the above task download flash player 9 instead of the latest version. However, latest version is preferred. for latest version visit this link: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Sometimes there are intricate browser flash conflicts and changing the versions is often helpful.

• if you are having problems while installing flash then read this stuff:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/191/tn_19166.html

• Update your sound drivers if possible since the videos may simply crash or freeze because of the corrupted or missing drivers.

1) Open Device Manager

2) Find the sound-card device

3) Remember the name of the device

4) Uninstall it.

5) After doing this restart your system and update the drivers if they are not automatically updated.

I have often noticed problems reported between minor revisions of FlashPlayer, so it may not be necessary to regress as far as to version 9. Another thought is that if you try to use the offline install methods or specifically save the executable installer for each revision you install it may give you an easy method of reverting.