Flash Cookies explained (most users don't understand this)

GHacks.net ^ | May 4, 2007 | Martin Brinkmann

[Texas Fossil]

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 ?

[SuziQ]

ROTFL!!

[ApplegateRanch]

Do these store account information, INSTEAD of regular first-party cookies? Or are these an added bonus headache?

Or are these a ‘work around’ for having blocked all third-party cookies; and are strictly for ad targeting etc?

If I delete them, have I then lost my automatic account recognition/auto-sign-in recognition at shopping/banking sites?

[novemberslady]

Thanks for posting this.

[BulletBobCo]

bookmark

[Lady Lucky]

Thank you cynwoody, I will definitely get that done soon! The computer is seriously old, it’s an xp and though I have newer models, it is like a pair of old slippers. Whenever I try to get used to a new computer, it winds up in a closet or is given away.

Even got used to that clock nonsense — fixing it several times a day. It’s working fine since the power failure...but why, I’m not sure I understand. If the battery’s dead, and the BIOS settings now work with a dead battery, what was the point of the battery?

[cynwoody]

I frequently see Google Analytics pop when navigating around the internet, even when Google (seemingly) shouldn’t be involved. Like when I clicked on this thread the little “waiting for” window popped up with Google Analytics, then FreeRepublic. All I can figure is that Google offers some kind of service that website owners can use to gather statistics about traffic on their site.

Exactly right. At the bottom of the current page is the urchinTracker:

<div style="font-size: 8pt; color: #777; font-family: Arial">
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson
</div>

    <script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">_uacct = "UA-2288668-1"; urchinTracker();</script>
  </body>
</html>

Did you ever wonder why Google is so good at staying on top of FR content? I mean, somebody will post some errant nonsense, and you will be moved to Google it on the off chance it isn't BS. So, you do, and the number #1 hit is the post you were just looking at. BS confirmed! I've had that exact experience a number of times.

It appears the Google spider takes a look every time the urchin squawks.

[Lazamataz]

I killed those flash cookies.

Unsurprisingly most of my cookies were from porn sites.

[eyedigress]

Set it up to block everything. Google is the biggest culprit.

[cynwoody]

If the battery’s dead, and the BIOS settings now work with a dead battery, what was the point of the battery?

The battery powers a small memory that keeps track of settings you may have made in the BIOS configuration (During a boot, hit DEL or F1 or whatever when prompted to get into the configuration menu). The settings are a mixture of trivial stuff, such as whether you want the Num Lock key on by default, and critical stuff, such as boot sequence, memory timings, etc. One other use of that memory, as you found out, is to store the current time across boots. If that memory loses power (battery dead, no external power), then the BIOS uses factory defaults and tries to sense the environment as best it can.

In the old days, if you lost the BIOS battery, the computer typically would not boot. That was because things like the disk drive characteristics were stored in the BIOS, and the BIOS needs that information to access the hard drive. To boot, you needed to dig out the manual(s) and input the proper settings by hand (much harder than fixing date/time). These days, the BIOS is able to talk to the disk drive controller and figure out those settings on its own.

[Mount Athos]

Version 7 of firefox is fixing a major memory leak, it should be coming out in a couple weeks

[Lady Lucky]

I have a teenager around here somewhere, will bring the teen in to read that and splain it all to me! :)

Seriously, although it is still a tad above my level, it is the most nearly understandable thing I have yet read on the subject — and I spent a LOT of time trying to grasp this. Many thanks again, cynwoody!

[tomkat]

Win7 > start > settings > control panel > flash player:

[Windflier]

Set it up to block everything. Google is the biggest culprit.

I've only had it on for an hour or two, and I've blocked nearly everything that's popped up. I know that Google is the octopus that ate the world, but I haven't blocked that one yet.

[Texas Fossil]

Thanks, the Windows users can use that settings information.

I am running Xubuntu 11.4 on this machine. I love XFCE window manager. Have used it since some time in 2002 (under Redhat 8.0).

That is why I had the discussion related to Firefox.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Nice story...:)

[tomkat]

I'm running FF v6 .. was under the impression that the control panel entry for Flash was an Adobe addition to the CP menu in much the same way Quicktime, Java, Bluetooth, and some other non-OS apps and hardware install their own control point.

But I've already been wrong a couple times this year, so . . .

lol

[ShadowAce]

[WaterBoard]

You can block Google Analytics, it is of no benefit to ordinary users. It merely provides tracking information for webmasters and Google executives.

[CedarDave]

Version 7 of firefox is fixing a major memory leak, it should be coming out in a couple weeks

FF's biggest problem up to now has been memory leaks in its previous versions.

The big problem I see now is that it is producing new versions faster, much faster, than the developers of the add-ons can keep up with. In its race to keep up with IE, Chrome and Opera FF is losing fans who feel left behind because they can't use their favorite add-ons to make their browsing easier and more enjoyable.

I will continue to use V 3.6.* until they discontinue security upgrades to that version.

[GOPJ]

I’ve got “BetterPrivacy” too - great stuff - dumps those flash cookies...