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davidh
January 14th, 2011, 01:01 PM
Adobe (finally) makes it easier to delete Flash cookies

Privacy menace made manageable

By Dan Goodin • Get more from this author

Posted in Security, 13th January 2011 05:00 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/13/deleting_flash_cookies/
Guess we'll have to wait for the new releases of browsers and of Flash?
I'm on Win 98 now, until my new Dell Vostro 200 (3 yr old PC) power supply arrives.

So I'll have to make do with FF Better Privacy extension.

Mike
January 19th, 2011, 01:42 AM
This seems to do a good job... (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/flash_cookies_view.html)

ndebord
January 22nd, 2011, 11:35 AM
Guess we'll have to wait for the new releases of browsers and of Flash?
I'm on Win 98 now, until my new Dell Vostro 200 (3 yr old PC) power supply arrives.

So I'll have to make do with FF Better Privacy extension.

David,

OR you could use K-Meleon, which only uses the flash dll plugin (not the full program) and doesn't save flash cookies at all. <g>

The trick is to copy the flash dll plugin to the K-Meleon plugin folder, then delete the files after zipping them up (found deep in the bowels of Windows C: \ program files\ System32 \ Macromedia \Flash ) IF perchance you need to use them again for another Browser, just unzip and voila.

davidh
January 22nd, 2011, 12:46 PM
David,

OR you could use K-Meleon, which only uses the flash dll plugin (not the full program) and doesn't save flash cookies at all. <g>

The trick is to copy the flash dll plugin to the K-Meleon plugin folder, then delete the files after zipping them up (found deep in the bowels of Windows C: \ program files\ System32 \ Macromedia \Flash ) IF perchance you need to use them again for another Browser, just unzip and voila.
Oh BTW Windows 98 only supports Flash 9. Youtube now demands Flash 10.

I fixed my power supply so I'm back on win xp.

I don't know what I'll do in 2014 when XP support stops.

Maybe I'll install Linux ?

As my age increases, I seem less willing to 'roll your own'.

I'm sort of getting fed up having to update something or other almost every week when Secunia PSI warns me of 3rd party plugin security holes, etc.

I also have to keep aware of the chance that updates to my various security programs might cause them to fight amongst themselves :rolleyes:

My current array of defenses:
Panda Cloud AV
PCTOOLS Firewall
OPENDNS
PCTOOLS Threatfire (behavioral malware detection)
AVG LinkScanner
FF Better Privacy
FF Adblock Plus
FF NoScript

plus on demand scanners
Ad Aware
Malwarebytes

Also BTW, I happened to notice that Firefox seemed to integrate WMP more tightly into itself. Flash started a mp3 playing in a tab in FF and then I also told FF to DL the mp3 to disk bypassing the playing inside FF, etc. IIRC I could not see the player controls in the FF tab. FWIW, as if I know what the heck is going on haha.

ndebord
January 22nd, 2011, 12:59 PM
David,

KM (K-Meleon) lets you pick your mp3 player, which is VLC for my tastes.
Similar with most plugin apps.

Standalone:

SuperAntiSpyware
Hitman Pro 3.5
Pavark (Panda anti-rootkit)
Sophos Anti-Rootkit
Sysclean
MalwareBytes

Interactive:

Outpost Firewall Free 2009*
Ad-Aware
Avast 5.1 free

* am going back and forth on firewalls. Have gone through more than a few in
the last couple of weeks while I dither and hopefully decide on a permanent
choice. This firewall is what I've been using since I dumped Comodo, which let
through some nasties a few years ago now.

davidh
January 22nd, 2011, 02:18 PM
Nick,
I like VLC too. Because it plays CD and DVD image files, e.g. ISO and BIN.

I tried Comodo once but I think I mistakenly chose the non-dummy mode. So it bothered me quite a bit with warnings. Other reasons or rumors, which I don't remember now, made me wary of trusting that company :(

ndebord
January 22nd, 2011, 10:08 PM
Nick,
I like VLC too. Because it plays CD and DVD image files, e.g. ISO and BIN.

I tried Comodo once but I think I mistakenly chose the non-dummy mode. So it bothered me quite a bit with warnings. Other reasons or rumors, which I don't remember now, made me wary of trusting that company :(

David,

Yup, VLC is a keeper. Have been using it since I found it. Before that I was using MediaPlayerClassic, but VLC is better imo.

Still looking at firewalls. Outpost Security Suite Free, which just came out, is one that I was trying, along with Online Armor and Private Firewall. OA didn't play well with DOS apps on my system, although it did on other people's computers. Private Firewall kept on changing the settings (I think), although it was not clear to me what exactly was going on except I think it kept going into auto train (can't remember the exact language).

OutPost Security Suite Free is coming out (any day now) with a new version that, although they won't admit it, fixes a couple of design flaws that bugged me. I think I'll wait for it and then see.

Jeff
January 23rd, 2011, 12:06 PM
This seems to do a good job... (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/flash_cookies_view.html)

Yeah, it does. And then I ran a simple search for *.sol Found a couple of hundred 1k files, all with the same name, that FlashCookie didn't list. No idea what they were, all gone now.

davidh
January 24th, 2011, 10:39 AM
Yeah, it does. And then I ran a simple search for *.sol Found a couple of hundred 1k files, all with the same name, that FlashCookie didn't list. No idea what they were, all gone now.
I have Better Privacy extension (to erase Flash cookies when FF closes) of Firefox installed in my regular Windows XP login account, but not yet in the Windows XP guest login account on my PC. Doing a global search for SOL files turned up some SOL files in Macromedia (Adobe) Flash related folders there in the Guest acct., but no SOL files in my regular Windows XP login account.

I also have Ghost Script 8.54 installed on my PC to display PDF files inside Irfanview (with a plugin for Irfanview). When doing a global search for SOL files I also found a file named fontmap.SOL in one of my Ghost Script folders (which of course I did NOT erase). So there is at least one other software besides Adobe Flash that uses the SOL file extension, but for a different purpose besides Flash cookies :D

Jeff
January 24th, 2011, 11:58 AM
I have Better Privacy extension (to erase Flash cookies when FF closes) of Firefox installed in my regular Windows XP login account, but not yet in the Windows XP guest login account on my PC. Doing a global search for SOL files turned up some SOL files in Macromedia (Adobe) Flash related folders there in the Guest acct., but no SOL files in my regular Windows XP login account.

The "ghost" SOLs are back. "settings.sol". There's only one account on this machine. This is the best, actually the only, way I have to capture the search results. It appears that if you click on the top "search results" bar in the image the image expands enough to read it clearly.

davidh
January 24th, 2011, 02:50 PM
The "ghost" SOLs are back. "settings.sol". There's only one account on this machine. This is the best, actually the only, way I have to capture the search results. It appears that if you click on the top "search results" bar in the image the image expands enough to read it clearly.
I have not studied much about Flash cookies. All I know is that the Firefox 'Better Privacy' extension erases the Flash cookies when I close Firefox.

So while I am browsing with Firefox, I would not be surprised if some SOL files appeared in a global search with Windows Explorer.

AKAIK Flash cookies may be a possible privacy problem, but probably NOT a security problem, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

ndebord
January 24th, 2011, 04:27 PM
Yeah, it does. And then I ran a simple search for *.sol Found a couple of hundred 1k files, all with the same name, that FlashCookie didn't list. No idea what they were, all gone now.

Jeff,

One way to go is to only do Flash in K-Meleon (so no flash cookies at all), and then use Open With in FireFox to call up K-Meleon when you wish to view a flash video. I do the same in IE, where I most definitely don't want addons as I don't trust IE at all.

davidh
January 24th, 2011, 07:43 PM
Jeff,

One way to go is to only do Flash in K-Meleon (so no flash cookies at all), and then use Open With in FireFox to call up K-Meleon when you wish to view a flash video. I do the same in IE, where I most definitely don't want addons as I don't trust IE at all.
I think I read a news article within the past 2 weeks saying that newer versions of some browsers, in the vanilla off the shelf browsers, will be able to list and/or delete Flash cookies. So maybe another solution is just to wait a month or two?

ndebord
January 24th, 2011, 07:46 PM
I think I read a news article within the past 2 weeks saying that newer versions of some browsers, in the vanilla off the shelf browsers, will be able to list and/or delete Flash cookies. So maybe another solution is just to wait a month or two?

David,

As Km doesn't use XUL nor ActiveX, unless you want it to, I use it all the time and call up IE, FF and Opera from within in. Sometimes I do it the other way around, but KM plugins are less intrusive on the whole than other browsers.

davidh
February 2nd, 2011, 04:06 PM
EFF will be submitting formal comments to the Federal Trade Commission responding to questions they raised in their privacy report. In the meantime, users should consider using some of the Mozilla Firefox addons that have already incorporated the header-based advertising opt-out. The Universal Behavioral Advertising Opt-Out is the easiest way to set the header today, though it is also set by development versions of AdBlock Plus and NoScript, and will be in future stable releases of those extensions.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/mozilla-leads-the-way-on-do-not-track

ndebord
February 9th, 2011, 07:29 PM
.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/mozilla-leads-the-way-on-do-not-track

David,

Good point... Do Not Track is a nice addition to any browser. I've added it to KM 1.6.

davidh
May 16th, 2011, 10:31 AM
Guess we'll have to wait for the new releases of browsers and of Flash?
I'm on Win 98 now, until my new Dell Vostro 200 (3 yr old PC) power supply arrives.

So I'll have to make do with FF Better Privacy extension.I just downloaded and installed Flash 10.3. It has a setting to disable storing ANY Flash Cookies (LSO's). I am trying the total disable. If it doesn't bother my browsing, I'll leave it that way, and eventually remove my FF BetterPrivacy extension.

You can access the Flash settings by right clicking on any playing of any Flash video in your browser. e.g. just go to you tube and play a video.

davidh
May 16th, 2011, 10:51 AM
I just downloaded and installed Flash 10.3. It has a setting to disable storing ANY Flash Cookies (LSO's). I am trying the total disable. If it doesn't bother my browsing, I'll leave it that way, and eventually remove my FF BetterPrivacy extension.

You can access the Flash settings by right clicking on any playing of any Flash video in your browser. e.g. just go to you tube and play a video.I'm not sure what's going on, but it seems as if sites store LSO's even if Flash might not have been run. OTOH Flash might flash by so fast I don't notice. Anyhow, seems like might have to keep Better Privacy to be sure all LSO's are deleted when FF closes.

davidh
May 17th, 2011, 01:47 PM
Adobe Flash 10.3 Active-X does not run in MS IE earlier than v.8

davidh
May 29th, 2011, 01:49 PM
am going back and forth on firewalls. Have gone through more than a few in the last couple of weeks while I dither and hopefully decide on a permanent choice. This firewall is what I've been using since I dumped Comodo, which let through some nasties a few years ago now.I've been using PCTOOLS firewall. I decided to try going back to Windows XP firewall only (inbound only), but sort of chickened out after a day or two just based on 'superstition' if you will.

Then I went to cnet.com to read the firewall reviews. After reading the reviews I decided to go back to PCTOOLS. I trust Zone Alarm but in the past it was slower than PCTOOLS and I had to turn it off to do file transfers on my home LAN.

The version of PCTOOLS fw on cnet was 6, I think, not sure, but it apparently updated to 7 upon installation. I like the new interface better.