Your kidding right?? Making such a blanket remark about ‘every’ flash cookie is more harmful than helpful. My site for example uses a flash cookie. On the home page intro, if you click on the ‘mute’ button to stop the music, it saves that so on your next visit, the sound is already off, and vice versa. Every time I have used regular or flash cookies, it has been for the convenience (and sometimes security) of the visitor. That can in no way be considered ‘harmful’, nor does it contain ANYTHING about your computer, and what is wrong with remembering ‘viewing habits’ (when used as a convenience for the visitor)??. The reason for this entry is because there are a LOT of sites out there that cause panic instead of teaching. A cookie that contains something like your userid (encoded of course), protects that visitor from someone else saying they are you. I think if more people knew just why they are used, they would not panic at the thought. If you want to block my little ‘mute’ cookie so the music plays everytime you hit my home page, fine. But, if you dont like the music every time, wouldn’t it be GREAT if you only had to hit the button once??? Programmers like myself had to switch to flash cookies because they do stay around a lot longer, and are harder to erase. I personally would never use a flash cookie, for that exact reason, for anything sensitive. I think each type of cookie has its own specific uses. Unfortunatly, there are a lot of programmers out there who do not give a d**m about the happiness of a sites visitors. Thanks for your time.

touch $HOME/.{adobe,macromedia}

will do the job. Then Flash is unable to store any LSO’s. Still some sites like myvideo or dailymotion require them to be functional (flv’s won’t start without LSO’s) so instead of spending time to finding a way on how to delete LSO’s, spend the time and complain they use such evasive methods (dailymotion etc.)

Using Objection or BetterPrivacy, is like killing a rattlesnake after being bitten. It gets rid of the snake, but it doesn’t stop the venom already in your blood stream. As far as I know, Flashblock is the only Firefox add-on that comes close to dealing with the problem by blocking the Flash app from loading in the first place. BetterPrivacy can be set to alert the user when an LSO is placed on the machine; but the possibility exists that the LSO could gather information and phone it home before the Internet connection could be severed and the LSO deleted.

Flashblock might block flash apps from loading or running, but a flash video or ad does not have to be loaded for LSOs or Flash cookies are placed on the user’s machine. Even with Flashblock running and all flash apps (ads, videos, etc.), Flash cookies and LSOs are still placed on the user’s machine.

Regarding the directories where Flash Cookies and LSOs are stored, there are seven locations that I have found so far where they are stored. Those locations are:

Not checked by BetterPrivacy or Objection:
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\filename.sol
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\[alpha-numeric folder name]\filename.sol

C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\filename.sol
C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\[alpha-numeric folder name]\filename.sol

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.[Your_Owner_Name]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\filename.sol
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.[Your_Owner_Name]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\[alpha-numeric folder name]\filename.sol

C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\[subdirectories]\filename.sol

No matter which Flash cookie/LSO detector add-on is used, only one directory is checked by default:
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner.[Your_Owner_Name]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\filename.sol

Other directories can be checked, but they have to be entered manually or copied and pasted from a text file that lists the directories likely to be affected.

So, until there is a program that will absolutely block Flash Cookies and LSOs from being downloaded, the detection apps amount to too little too late.

I did an experiment using BetterPrivacy and Flashblock. I didn’t care for Objection, because it cannot be configured at all except to change the directory that is checked and to record Flash cookies or LSOs that are downloaded to the chosen directory. BetterPrivacy can be configured to warn the user when an LSO or a Flash cookie is downloaded–and it will delete them. However, the “Delete Flash cookies upon application start” feature does not work. I had it ticked, but when the flash cookies were placed on my machine and the video player (application) started, the cookies/LSOs were not deleted. They remained on my machine until I removed them.

Don’t let anyone tell you that the cookies are necessary in order for a Flash application to run or run correctly. That is not true. After choosing a video and receiving the warning from BetterPrivacy that the cookies/LSOs had been downloaded, I deleted them while the video was playing and had no interruption whatsoever in the video. It still downloaded to the cache, and it still played as it downloaded with no difference in speed or quality compared to playing the video with the cookies/LSOs on my machine. I tried deleting the LSOs before playing the video, and still the video played correctly. So, the LSOs and Flash cookies have nothing whatsoever to do with playing or the quality of Flash videos (flv files).

It should be noted, too, that I did the experiment with Flashblock running and then repeated the experiment with Flashblock disabled. In both scenarios, the LSOs and Flash cookies were downloaded onto my hard drive. Flashblock does not block the cookies and LSOs. All it does is stop the flash video or audio from running or downloading to the cache.

Someone needs to develop an add-on that will altogether stop the Flash cookies and LSOs from downloading. Until then, the Flash cookies and LSOs will have to be found and deleted manually.

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player

…to CCleaner’s include folder, so it gets automatically cleaned every time you run the program.

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player

Directory. All of your online bank sites still work.. because note all people have flash installed, and not all browser types support flash.

Another solution (which I personally implement and recommend) is to set up a periodic nulling run (every few minutes or so) of a great freeware backup program called “Replicator”:

(http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp)

The desired functionality is realized through a job setup which is configured to copy content from any arbitrary directory of your system (“C:\” for example) WITHOUT TRANSFERRING ANY FILES OR SUBFOLDERS (in other words, nothing at all) directly to your “C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\” folder.

The resulting mirror will be void: Complete automated deletion of all LSO cookies; with the bonus of having a fantastic freeware backup program in your system tray.

Savvy?