Limit the file size of a Flash cookie or set the permitted file size to zero, effectively restricting the cookie.Īdobe Flash Player 10.2 and Browser Privacy Mode.

Prevent Flash cookies from being stored on your computer.Delete some or all of the Flash cookies.View all of the sites that have stored Flash cookies on your computer.The administration panel that you will see is not an image it is the actual Settings Manager. In the menu that appears, click the Settings item.ĭetail of the Adobe Settings Manager tool. To view the storage settings for a website that uses Flash, right-click on the Flash content itself. Do Not Track legislation and upcoming web browser releases will surely address the privacy issues presented by Flash cookies. Unfortunately, and probably because Flash cookies are a relatively unknown phenomenon, unethical companies are still able to exploit cookie re-spawning. This practice is malicious because it never allows a user to truly delete a cookie, and the user’s privacy is never really protected.Ī recent New York Times article entitled “Code That Tracks Users’ Browsing Prompts Lawsuits” states that at least five class-action lawsuits have been filed against well-known companies - like Fox Entertainment, NBC, and Quantcast - accusing them of malevolently using Flash cookies. If the normal cookie does not exist - because the user has deleted it - the Flash cookie creates and installs another one. When the Flash cookie is activated, it checks for the existence of the normal cookie. The Flash cookie stores the normal cookie’s unique cookie ID. A website installs a regular browser cookie and a Flash cookie on the user’s computer. The process of re-spawning a cookie is fairly simple. This somewhat malicious practice is often referred to as “cookie re-spawning.” Cookie Re-SpawningĪlong with the difficulty and confusion involved in deleting them, Flash cookies are capable of violating a user’s privacy in another way – by reinstalling normal browser cookies that have been deleted. As of writing, this API’s status is “Accepted, ready for implementation.” So it remains to be seen what web browsers will adopt this technology. In January 2011, several companies, including Adobe, developed an API called NPAPI:ClearSiteData, which allows subscribing browsers - Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome - to truly delete Flash Shared Objects from a computer. Clicking a remove all cookies button will delete normal browser cookies, but does not remove FSOs. Flash cookies don’t play by the same rules as normal browser cookies. Accordingly, it will be quite disconcerting for many people to learn that none of these processes will remove Flash cookies. Over the last few years, most web surfers, including novice users, have become accustomed to activities such as clearing private data, removing browsing history, and deleting cookies. Flash Cookies Are Not Deleted Along With Browser Cookies Even though you may not understand what’s saved in a normal browser cookie, the contents are stored as plain text, and thus readable by humans.īrowser cookies are human readable and have an expiration date. If you do succeed in discovering where your Flash cookies are being stored, you will not be able to read their contents. Browser cookies, on the other hand, have a built in expiry mechanism. Whether the visitor uses Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, or any other browser, the Flash cookie will continue to collect data.Ī Flash Shared Object will never expire unless it’s deleted, and as you will see below, that’s not so easy to do. This tightly controlled environment does not apply to Flash Shared Objects, whose boundaries are not limited to a single web browser. FSOs Have No Boundaries, No Expiry Date, and Are Not Readable by HumansĪ normal browser cookie exists within the boundaries of a single web browser, which means that a cookie stored for a Firefox user cannot track the same user in Internet Explorer. Flash cookies can store up to 100KB of data by default.

Flash cookie viewer