Flash cookies are a new way of tracing your movement and storing a lot more information about you than with normal cookies. One major disadvantage of flash cookies is that you can’t locate them in your browser. They are not shown in the list of cookies that you can see when you take a look at the cookies that are currently saved in your web browser. Normal HTTP cookies can’t save more than 4 Kilobyte of data while Flash cookies can save up to 100 Kilobyte. If you want to try out how they work you could do the following.
Go to Youtube, increase or decrease the volume of the videos and delete all cookies afterwards. You will notice that the volume level is still at the same level when you close your browser and open it again. This is done with so called Local Shared Objects, better known as Flash cookies. The main question is of course how a computer can be checked for Flash cookies and how it would be possible to delete those cookies again.
This is actually a very tricky thing. I was searching for a way to check them on my computer but could not find it. After reading some information on the Adobe Flash Player website I was able to realize that the only possibility to check them was to open a page on the Adobe site which would show them.
The so called Settings Manager can be accessed from the Adobe website but is running locally on your computer. The Website Storage Settings display all Flash cookies that are currently saved on your computer. You can delete flash cookies from individual sites or all at once. It is also possible to increase or decrease the Kilobyte size of all information that are stored on your computer.
Adobe does not have access to the settings that you see in the Settings Manager or to personal information on your computer.
No Flash Cookies will be saved if you go into Global Storage Settings and disable the option “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer”.
47 websites did store Flash cookies on my computer and I decided to delete all of them and disable the feature to be on the safe site. Did you know about Flash cookies ? How many did you find on your pc ?
Related Articles:
Display Detailed Flash Cookies Information With Flash Cookies ViewFlash Cookies Cleaner
Manage Flash Cookies with Better Privacy
Delete Flash Cookies
Four Options To Deal With Flash Cookies
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ using the icons below.
Flash cookies are also used in ecommerce/affiliate marketing because so many people are paranoid about cookies that they delete them, which means that if an affiliate referred a customer for a merchant, that affiliate won’t get the credit if the merchant’s affiliate tracking system relies just on cookies.
Some affiliate tracking systems go further and check ip address, but with mobile growing and dsl switching ip addresses, ip tracking is not so reliable as a backup to cookies. Flash cookies ensure that more affiliates get credit for referred sales, which results in more motivated affiliates and more happy merchants.
There are just a few affiliate tracking systems that support flash cookies, and super affiliates are demanding this feature more and more as they realize that some merchants are not giving them the credit for sales they sent them, because the cookies were deleted by some paranoid shopper.
Sure this tracking method can be used in bad ways by some sites, but that’s nothing new and there’s many worse scenarios with js injection and drive by viruses on sites you visit.
If you have a problem with it then turn it off.
But then you ALSO need to consider the increased hassle you are making for yourself by having to re-enter data for sites like Google, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and other respectable sites that use flash cookie tracking too. You can’t have it both ways.
Hello Peter,
you are completely right with everything you say, except:
“But then you ALSO need to consider the increased hassle you are making for yourself by having to re-enter data for sites like Google, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and other respectable sites that use flash cookie tracking too. You can’t have it both ways.”
If you are using a sophisticated Cookie Manager like MAXA Cookie Manager, you can specify which cookies you want to keep (whitelist) and which ones you want to immediately delete or block (blacklist). As it support flash cookies togerther with all conventional variants of cookies, you can have it both ways indeed, using MAXA Cookie Manager:
http://www.maxa-tools.com/cookie.php?lang=en
Still, these Flash Cookies are quite usefull for me as a game developer. So there not all that evil. Otherwise u wont actualy be able to save your game (unles u want to use a SQL server).
flash cookies URL？
If Macromedia/Adobe’s intentions were honorable, then they would have made it possible for the user to manage these cookies.
Guess this is one of the reasons God created FlashBlocker?
@#$^&@!! @$#$%^ adobe
On linux:
rm -R /home/user/.macromedia
ln -s /dev/null /home/user/.macromedia
Max
I found 546 flash cookies on my site, some recent activity on my machine has prompted to find changes on my machine. Apparently there is some capacity for malicious behavior with these cookies, phishing and such. My mac is not safe any longer. waugh!
Thanks for the info.
There’s a reason for Flashblock, and it’s fuckwittery like this (not the article, which is excellent, Adobe’s behaviour).
in some cases flash cookies are urgently required.
For example, one of my favorite sites uses flash extensively in delivering content. I have to accept their cookies or their site won’t store my preferences and my experience there would be severely adversely limited.
Not all flash cookies are the devil.
But, its great to now have some control over them. Thanks for the referral to that site.
Thats it! no more inter webs for me! lol
Excellent summary re flash cookies. Thanks
Rad
Haha paranoid! All your clicks and visits on the web are being monitored anyways, ip’s, location, time stored. It’s a public space. I bet you scared victorians found some porn links in your .sol folder; what’s wrong with that; your not the only one watching xtube.
It is not necessary to use cookies in order to save temporary information required for whatever is needed.
The point is that they don’t want you to have the CONTROL of the amount of personal information you deliver and leave viewable for ANYONE every time you are surfing the net.
Just think why didn’t they implemented that Adobe Control Panel and you only have access through the web (and its unknown still today). And this panel doesn’t remove all the information just part of it.
“Not all flash cookies are the devil.”
No it’s just that most of mine are 1k in size and i also know eBay is placing script on pages all over the internet just to get the referer string so they know each time you log on to get your email even after you have removed cookies and deleted history.
I see all the negative posts here about flash and it’s local shared objects and I have to wonder why are you so afraid of privacy.
What I mean to say is, if you’re on the internet, nothing is private. BigBrother is watching you on so many levels you can’t even imagine.
Now flash can bring you great content and local shared objects are handy for storing information to make the best out of user experience on a flash website.
Now how developers and corporations decide to use them is another thing. Technologies are out there and if it’s not ‘flash cookies’ it’s something else they will use. And yes it’s for keeping track of your preferences and things you like, but mostly the reason is to serve you relevant content and save your time.
So ,if anyone has a problem with privacy on the internet, they might as well uninstall their browser.
Nice to see you not only show the problom but also the solution.
if we stopped Google/YouTube eBay and double click plus bill gates spying on us then the internet would work twice as fast.
i’m not ebays best freind at all but shock, horror when i found they had scripts running in my freemail page and flash cookies on my machine.
To date i know of six ways we are being tracked and i bet thats not hal of them and it’s time we had a replacment for FF who is taking money from Google and can no longer be trusted.
I’ve noticed some flash cookies that survived many reformats,
most of which were on machines before I got them, but some of
which don’t even have the same hard drive. I wonder where they
are being stored, maybe refreshed from a database with MAC addresses?
POOPIE1980COOKIE
Overuse of “so called” (snort)
I really think Adobe should be dumped from all computers. They are devious and Steve Jobs has the right attitude. No f-ing with my machine.
Adobe has also failed to mention that once you have made all of the modifications on their site (cleaning out LSO’s and checking the settings to prevent future cookies), are all instantly undone as soon as you run any standard cookie cleaning program on your computer. Their “protective” cookie gets washed away leaving you right back where you were before, eliminating all of your efforts to enhance privacy.
Design flaw? I doubt it.
Wow. The bastards haven’t said anything about those cookies and “The Media” doesn’t say much of anything about them either.
This is all true but there is an easy way to remove this cookies use fire fox and go to this free addon it works the first time i installed it it remove more than 600 flash cookies and it remove then every time you closed your browser now is usually abot 1 to 7 depends were i browse and is free go here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/but you have to use fire fox I like fire fox but if i dont want to use fire fox just installed it and it will remove your flash cookies from any browser you used good luck a friend
Flash Cookies are not evil if you know how to control them. I have uninstalled Opera and Safari for Microsoft Windows computers because they don’t allow you to do the following.
View my post here.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=1210467d8af6a3cf&hl=en
This is something new — finally a Firefox addon that gives you real control over tracking companies (including Flash cookies), without messing up cookies for other purposes or blocking ads entirely. The list of companies covered is amazing.
Well thanks to your post now i have more control of my Cookies, sometimes is good to delete all them for safety.
You can delete all “flash cookies” in your computer (when you close your browser window) by installing a free browser plug-in called Taco Abine. I use it with my Linux system and sometimes it deletes as many as 80 flash cookies at a time. I LOVE IT!
I am an Independent Researcher for Law Firms. I am currently researching the Flash cookie tracking via PayPal/eBay and was wondering if you could help me. I know they are tracking with all the lastest research reports that have came out via Wall Street Journals article “What They Know” and other Berkley Studies but explaing how the 3rd parties such as but not limited to ShareThis, LivePerson, MarkMonitor,etc…..
Below is a sample of LSO cookie from PayPal therefore your input on what you see would be helpful.
http://www.paypal.com paypalLSO.sol 10/21/2009 11:36:53 AM 10/21/2009 11:37:01 AM 111 C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.name [redacted]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\name [redacted]\www.paypal.com\paypalLSO.sol
http://www.paypal.com ppLsoTest.sol 10/21/2009 11:35:06 AM 10/21/2009 11:35:06 AM 48 C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.name [redacted]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\name [redacted]\www.paypal.com\ppLsoTest.sol
http://www.paypalobjects.com paypalLSO.sol 8/10/2010 8:26:47 PM 8/10/2010 8:26:55 PM 111 C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.name [redacted]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\name [redacted]\www.paypalobjects.com\paypalLSO.sol
http://www.paypalobjects.com ppLsoTest.sol 7/20/2010 5:43:51 AM 7/20/2010 5:43:51 AM 48 C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.name [redacted]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\name [redacted]\www.paypalobjects.com\ppLsoTest.sol
Thank you for any assistance you can provide.
Barbara
Hi Barbara. I’ve been a Paypal user for years. I have never seen any LSOs on my two computers. I routinely screen for *.sol and also use the Adobe Flash Manager settings to insure that flash cookies do not get attached.
Run Abine.