We explained Flash Cookies in detail back in 2007 when a larger group of Internet users became aware of them. More than two years have passed since then with Flash cookies still playing a major role on many popular web services and for many advertising agencies.

Here are four options to deal with Flash cookies:

Option 1: Adobe Flash Player Settings

Probably the best option to deal with Flash cookies is to open the Adobe Flash Player settings. Users can look at the stored Flash cookies, delete some or all and change several options that change or even block Flash cookies on the user system.

Option 2: The manual way

Flash Cookies are stored on the local computer system. Their location varies depending on the operating system. Flash cookies are stored as *.sol files in the operating system. Here are the locations they can usually be found in:

• Windows: LSO files are stored typically with a “.SOL” extension, within each user’s Application Data directory, under Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects.
• Mac OS X: For Web sites, ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player. For AIR Applications, ~/Library/Preferences/[package name (ID) of your app].
• GNU-Linux: ~/.macromedia, ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects, ~/.adobe

The process of deleting those flash cookies could be automated with the right software program, e.g. CCleaner for Windows.

Option 3: Firefox add-on Better Privacy

The Firefox add-on Better Privacy can delete Flash cookies regularly to get rid of them automatically with options to whitelist some Flash cookies that are needed, e.g. for storing high scores on your favorite gaming website or playback settings on Youtube.

Option 4: Flash Cookie Cleaner (Windows software)

Flash Cookie Cleaner is a software program for the Windows operating system. The portable software program can be used to delete all stored Flash cookies of the logged in user. It is available at the developer’s website.

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Adobe is providing a website with options to change Flash Cookie behavior. Users can change the storage space – default 100K – or deny access to Flash Cookies to websites that they have already visited.

It’s not a practical solution though. Objection on the other hand is a Firefox add-on that is giving access to the Flash Cookies right in the browser. It is not possible to change settings with the add-on but it provides an easy way to delete selected (or all) Flash Cookies.

The add-on provides an automatic search to find the location of the Local Shared Objects Folder on the system. It was not able to detect mine and I had to manually add it by browsing to the correct location. According to Wikipedia Flash Cookies are located in..

• Windows: LSO files are stored typically with a “.SOL” extension, within each user’s Application Data directory, under Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects.
• Mac OS X: For Web sites, ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player. For AIR Applications, ~/Library/Preferences/[package name (ID) of your app].
• GNU-Linux: ~/.macromedia

All Flash Cookies stored on the system are displayed once the folder has been correctly identified. A click on a Flash Cookie displays its contents. The user has the option to delete selected Flash Cookies only or all of them in one go.

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Users can delete the cookies in that directory regularly or on a website. There is no direct way in Firefox to delete those cookies. That is, until now. The Firefox extension Better Privacy is a cookie manager for LSO Flash Objects and DOM Storage Objects. Flash Cookies (Local Shared Objects) are placed on the computer by a Flash application like the Youtube Video Player.

These cookies can be set to never expire which is obviously an excellent opportunity to track and analyze users. Another difference between flash and normal cookies is the size limitation. Normal cookies cannot exceed 4KB while Flash Cookies have a default size of 100 Kilobyte but the range is between 0 and Unlimited Kilobytes !

Better Privacy deletes Flash Cookies and DOM Storage cookies by deleting them on every startup. This setting can be changed to prevent the deletion of flash cookies that are needed. Several browser games make use of Flash cookies to save the progress of the player. The alternative option is to delete them manually in the options that are provided by the add-on.

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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 ?

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