Flash Cookie Remover

Published on April 20, 2011 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

Adobe Flash Player has a property which imo is borderline illegal. So do other programs.

Background – websites and apps can (and do) place cookies on your system which are designed to make loading the website faster. They generally expire after a certain amount of time. Ideally, they aren’t supposed to collect info about you, especially if you gave no consent for them to do so (at least in my opinion) because that is a privacy violation. Usually cookies are just small pieses of text. Flash cookies are way different.

gHacks gives a good explanation of flash cookies and a link back to the original article about them here, as well as four ways to deal with them: A valuable article.

So, back to the topic: it puts a data collecting cookie on your system. Others can then harvest the info from these cookies, and do. Flash Cookies, a.k.a. Local Shared Objects (LSOs), are cookie-like data files that are stored on a computer. Flash Cookies are used by all versions of Adobe Flash Player.

“Cookies by their design constitute privacy concerns because they store data which may be retrieved by people or programs that are up to no good. Ordinary cleaners do remove regular cookies but do not remove these Flash Cookies, giving the user a false sense of security. Several services even use Flash Cookies as a data storage to reinstate traditional cookies that a user deleted, which is called 're-spawning'. So even if a user gets rid of a website’s tracking cookie, that cookie’s unique ID will be assigned back to a new cookie again using the Flash data as the ‘backup’. If you value your privacy these Flash Cookies should be removed.” – Softpedia

The Flash Cookies Cleaner application was developed to be a small tool that has been designed specifically to remove every Flash Cookie from your system.

It’s free, and I use it.

I stopped telling my mom where I went a long time ago.

Download link: http://www.flashcookiecleaner.com/

Comments (Page 2)

inthebloodofeden

on Apr 21, 2011

DrJBHL

reply 13

Thanks for that info, Steven. inbloodofeden, it might be good as a preventive, but it won't remove the ones already there. I got rid of 11 such cookies with it already.

*edit - fixed. sorry Steven and inbloodofeden, the quoting thing gets us old folks confused.... still stand by the gist of what I wrote in the response to the BetterPrivacy... also there appear to be some extensions which don't play nicely with Forums/Galleries here.

I'm wondering if we are talking about the same extension (BetterPrivacy) .Did you check BetterPrivacy settings carefully? I NEVER keep Flash cookies in my system. I downloaded falshcookiecleaner, and it always says "No Flash Cookies found" . More, I have no any kind of problem with Forums/Galleries; in that case, however, is suggested to check the box "Delete all flash cookies when exit...". Maybe are you confusing it with Ghostery, or you took the flash cookies surfing the web using some other browsers with no specific protection or right settings??

DrJBHL

on Apr 21, 2011

No reported issue with BetterPrivacy. There are reports of Gallery problems with Ghostery. Once you're cleaned out with the flash cookie deleter, having the extension makes sense. Before doing the cleaning, all the extension will do is prevent more getting on.

inthebloodofeden

on Apr 21, 2011

DrJBHL

reply 17

Not sure about that, Doc. If the right boxes are checked in BetterPrivacy settings, you can get all Flash cookies deleted, even ones got before extension was installed, if any. BetterPrivacy allows a Complete control about Flash cookies, it doesn't matter when the extension is iinstalled; it detects ALL flash cookies stored in the system (well, that's the way I think it works...) .

Dr Guy

on Apr 21, 2011

I was not aware of Flash cookies! Thanks for the find.

StevenAus22

on Apr 21, 2011

Like most people. Apparently this fact has been a gold mine for media companies, which have been able to get info on users' browsing habits even when the user did not give permission for these permanent cookies to be collecting and sharing information for any company that had the right connections.

Best regards,
Steven.

RogueCaptain

on Apr 21, 2011

I once used NEVERCOOKIE but it is not yet compatable with Firefox 4.

inthebloodofeden

on Apr 21, 2011

RogueCaptain

reply 21

I once used NEVERCOOKIE but it is not yet compatable with Firefox 4.

For Flas cookies use BetterPrivacy on FF4, and flashcookiecleaner as "second opinion" .

Uvah

on Apr 21, 2011

I tried the Flash Cookie Cleaner. It doesn't install. All you do is click and there they are. you can view them, choose what to keep or just click delete and poof! gone. Just like that. Cool.

ekimragz

on Apr 22, 2011

Uvah

reply 23

It doesn't install.

It installs if you download it.

DaveRI

on Apr 22, 2011

Another thanks for the tip, I had no idea those little devils were out there. Needless to say, I'd accumulated a decent load. Kind of torques me off. But they be gone now .

I'll add a usage note in case anyone else is wondering (I was):

It deletes the cookies and their directories from the user area of the currently logged in user. So you need to run it from within each user, just running from Admin only cleans out the Admin user. Since it only affects the user area, runs fine from within a limited user.

Thanks again for this one Doc, earned your pizza

DrJBHL

on Apr 22, 2011

You had to say it out loud. HG swooped in and grabbed it before I even got a whiff. *doc makes reolution to get that HG_E.

HG_Eliminator

on Apr 22, 2011

nom nom nom,, keep dreamin there saw bones

DrJBHL

on Apr 22, 2011

hmmmm....

Cavan1

on Apr 22, 2011

Hey Doc, this is a cool little app, easy to use, but CCleaner does clean flash cookies, all at once get rid of everything with CCleaner.

LordCobol

on Apr 22, 2011

I just keep flash disabled for all my browsing -- by disabling the add-ons in my browsers. Feel much safer that way, and don't miss it at all.

Used to not have it on my machine at all, but now that Chrome comes with it...

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