Flash Cookies - have you ever checked how many are on your computer ?

[Mark Grant]

Flash Cookies

Most computer users dont know what a flash cookie is.
These are different from the usual ' browser' cookies.

They are cookies that are used to track and store information about youre web browsing.

They have been around for a few years but rarely get mentioned.

A flash cookie can be up to 100kb in size, a normal browser cookie is only 4kb.

Most experienced computer users will use free applications such as ccleaner http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner to clean their PC, but this does not clean the flash cookies.

The only way I have found to access them easily is to use the online tool at macromedia.com

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html#117717

This opens a control panel, scroll down the list of cookies, if the computer is a few years old there may be hundreds or thousands of them.

My PC that is only a year old had hundreds of flash cookies, many of the site names I had never visited, shows how much stuff gets planted by flash banner adverts etc..

You can delete them from the control panel.- ' delete all sites'

If you disable flash cookies some sites might not work, so maybe clearing them occasionally is the way to go.

That's my free tip of the day

How long was the list on your PC ?

[jantheman]

How many?? Dont know Mark but there were quite a few. Thanks for the tip.

[spendorman]

Thanks for that, never knew about them.

This looks interesting:

http://download.cnet.com/Flash-Cookie-Cleaner/3000-2248_4-10969256.html

[slate]

About 100 on this 9 month old laptop.

Actually I installed Flash 10.3 the other day and you then get an applet in the Control Panel which allows you to clear stored information.... besides the usual slew of error corrections.

The only good thing Steve Jobs have ever done is motivating Adobe to improve Flash.

[Reid Malenfant]

Yikes :eek: Cheers for the heads up Mark :eyebrows:

I couldn't count them all :doh: That site is now bookmarked :)

[aquapiranha]

As you can see here, I have none. This is because I use a Firefox plug-in called Quick & Clean, this does the job for me whenever I exit. You can get it for free at mozilla...

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb256/aquapiranha/Screenshot-1.png

[Thing Fish]

Firefox is the mutts nuts. ie can kiss my a***...:)

[Spectral Morn]

Thanks for that, never knew about them.

This looks interesting:

http://download.cnet.com/Flash-Cookie-Cleaner/3000-2248_4-10969256.html

Just downloaded this and I have only a few one for ebay and another I don't recognise what it is.

Not as bas as I thought it might be.


Regards D S D L

[Fi-Wi]

I deleted every 5 of them. And don't come back! :lol:

[goraman]

I had several and now they are gone.

[John]

Only had a few but now gone

[spendorman]

Same applies for those running Firefox in Linux.

Flash cookies are there.

My Laptop runs Linux Mint, just a few flash cookies were there, gone now.

[aquapiranha]

Same applies for those running Firefox in Linux.

Flash cookies are there.

My Laptop runs Linux Mint, just a few flash cookies were there, gone now.

I am running Ubuntu 11.04 / Firefox on the laptop and PC, as you can see, Click & Clear sorts out the cookies no worries.

[Jonboy]

just cleared 763:eek:

[goraman]

How come my computer is from 08 and I only had a hand full and others have hundreds?
Thats odd.

[Reid Malenfant]

You must lead a charmed life Jeff :eyebrows:

[Welder]

None ;)