Think you've cleared your cookies? Think again

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 01:36 PM

Those sneaky buggers are tracking you, ALWAYS!! Well some are anyway, theres a few sites admitting to using Flash Cookies, another reason to install some sort of flash blocking software, no idea how effective they are at stopping them but flash is a godawful technology that should be wiped off the face of the net IMO.

You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again | Epicenter | Wired.com

For Mac
Flush.app - Flash Cookie Removal Tool For OS X | MacHacks.TV

For Firefox Win/Mac(?)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623

The always useful CCleaner for Windows
CCleaner - Home

Where to find these flash cookies:

* Windows: LSO files are stored typically with a “.SOL” extension, within each user’s Application Data directory, under Macromedia\FlashPlayer\#SharedObjects.

* Mac OS X: For Web sites, ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer. For AIR Applications, ~/Library/Preferences/[package name (ID)of your app] and ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer/macromedia.com/Support/flashplayer/sys

* GNU-Linux: ~/.macromedia

If youre a bit wary of deleting stuff then do a bit of reading and searching first, Im not responsible for blah, blah, blah.......

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 01:46 PM

If you play a lot of flash games online this is how they "remember" what level/stage you got up to even after you've got private browsing turned on or when you've cleared all you cookies.

**Thetyim** · 12-08-2009, 01:57 PM

Thanks.

I did a search for .sol and found zero

Then I did it again for hidden files and found 83 of the buggers

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 02:11 PM

Im doing a bit more reading before I go gung ho on them, I found them in 2 seperate folders, close to 100 of them, some from sites I visited once over 6 months ago.

I even got one from TD for the chatroom!

I think if you clear them then next time you visit the site it might be a bit slow as its going to rebuild the files.

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 02:49 PM

Heres a few links for anyone who want to look into it more

Flash Cookies explained

Local Shared Object - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Study: Adobe Flash Cookies Pose Vexing Privacy Questions - PC World

Adobe - Adobe Flash Player : What Is a Local Shared Object?

**Thetyim** · 12-08-2009, 03:08 PM

I just deleted all my .sol files

I'm still able to post so looks like no damage done

**Butterfly** · 12-08-2009, 03:32 PM

great, thanks for the tip

found hundreds in mine, mostly xtube and all kind of dirty porn shit, took the whole directory and trashed it

this FLASH thing is nasty, really a security risk, no matter the platform

**The Fresh Prince** · 12-08-2009, 03:43 PM

Cheers Melv. I had 230, mostly porn as Butters said. (But obviously not the same kinda porn

)

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 03:43 PM

Its shocking how many sites seem to install them, looks like almost anything that uses Flash.

The ones in sys are all prefixed with #

**bretby** · 12-08-2009, 03:51 PM

Recently a Thaivisa moderator in Pattaya told me that the way they find out if somebody is using multiple user names is that a cookie is planted on every members computer. It seems that one of the root admin is an expert at this. Scary.

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 05:58 PM

Ive just ran Flush (Mac) and its cleared them all. If you want to keep any move them somewhere else before you double click it as it just runs straight away.

**bretby** · 12-08-2009, 06:22 PM

A good cleaner is Max spyware detector. It does a quick scan or a full system scan very quickly. Max Spyware Detector : Detect and safely remove spyware and adware from your PC

I scan with this, then scan with Norton and between the 2 the cookies are cleared.

**slackula** · 12-08-2009, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by bretby

Recently a Thaivisa moderator in Pattaya told me that the way they find out if somebody is using multiple user names is that a cookie is planted on every members computer. It seems that one of the root admin is an expert at this. Scary.

It's pretty simple to filter and then delete cookies from TV, they aren't the smartest people out there. Not that I care, because I never used multiple nicks there but when one got banned it was easy to sign up with another. They aren't half as smart as they think they are, and it's a shitty forum anyway.

Your Mod friend sounds about as dumb as the Admin you refer to, which isn't really surprising.

Originally Posted by melvbot

Ive just ran Flush (Mac) and its cleared them all. If you want to keep any move them somewhere else before you double click it as it just runs straight away.

A bit surprising that it doesn't give the option to choose which ones to remove a la CCleaner, but as a freebie it seemed to do a thorough enough job, I guess as it develops it will gain features.

Many thanks for that.

**bretby** · 12-08-2009, 06:39 PM

"Your Mod friend sounds about as dumb as the Admin you refer to, which isn't really surprising."

No friend of mine I met him at a pissup they were having at the Pattaya Beer Garden

**Smug Farang Bore** · 12-08-2009, 08:00 PM

Use the objection add-on with Firefox.

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by slackula

A bit surprising that it doesn't give the option to choose which ones to remove a la CCleaner, but as a freebie it seemed to do a thorough enough job, I guess as it develops it will gain features.

Many thanks for that.

I think its just a script someones packaged up so its bare bones.

**melvbot** · 12-08-2009, 08:29 PM

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623

Cant seem to find objection, that does something similar.

**Bung** · 12-08-2009, 08:49 PM

Well done Melv, another great thread with sensible 'puter tips!

Have a green.

maybe later then, out of ammo....

**Wallalai** · 13-08-2009, 11:43 PM

Thanks Melv.

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