2 responses to “Blocking Flash cookies in a corporate environment”

1. 

   guest August 19th, 2010 at 12:11

   Never mind about a corporate environment, how about the home user?

   I didn’t know about this problem until I read this post, even though it has been a problem for 2 years.

   I read your InfoWorld blog article (”Block ‘Flash cookies’ to thwart zombies”) carefully.

   1) I went to your link for Adobe’s stupidly designed Adobe’s Flash Player Settings Manager site (http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager06.html) I have never seen such a poorly designed site.

   The “buttons” for the different panels are hidden on the top left as text / hyperlinks, instead of more obvious controls like buttons WITHIN the OTHER control (panel) hiding as a graphic. Also, related settings are separated (links to Global storage and Website storage panel should be grouped together) – illogical. (I sent feedback to Adobe blasting all the things wrong with the site

   1a) I navigated first to the “Global Storage Settings panel” (http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html).

   Should I uncheck the bottom 2 boxes?

   1b) I next navigated to the “Website Storage Settings panel”, http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html.

   I chose to “Delete all sites” and set the slider to “None”.

   2) You mention 2 steps: cleaning and blocking:

   “The official method for cleaning and blocking Flash LSOs on an individual machine hasn’t changed in more than two years. To block Flash cookies the official way, you have to go to Adobe’s Flash Player Settings Manager site …”

   So, this takes care of blocking cookies.

   Further up, you mention:

   “Blocking Flash cookies is not straightforward. LSOs are stored in files with extension .SOL. On most Windows PCs, they’re in folders under %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\ and %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys.”

   So, should we go to these two directories and delele only the “.sol” files? Or all files?

   (An easy way to do this in Windows is to navigate to the directory in Windows Explorer, use the Search button in the toolbar, search All files and folders, click on More Advanced options and make sure click the top 3 checkboxes to search in most folders, then enter nothing (for all files) or .sol in the search box. Then you can select from the Search Results, which pulls from all subdirectories, to delete).

   Should we delete all directories?

   Thanks a lot for this useful, important info.

   P.S. Maybe in your InfoWorld blog, you can make 2 improvements?

   1) Your link to the Settings Manager went to the Website Privacy Settings panel (…/settings_manager06.html), which controls access to the camera and microphone.

   Since the article is about storage, maybe you should change the link to the Website Storage Settings panel (http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html).

   That site is already confusing enough to use.

   2) Maybe you should mirror your answer to the above question about cleaning (deleting) cookies to the InfoWorld blog also.

2. 

   rc primak August 19th, 2010 at 23:53

   @guest —

   Save yourself a headache and a half — there is a tool which takes care of all Flash Cookies, and in The Windows Secrets Lounge, we have had a lot of other suggestions for home users. Joining us in The Lounge is free and easy to set up — no personal information beyond your e-mail address is needed, and The Lounge does not spam people.

   In answer to your concerns, try Click&Clean, which is an Add-on for Google Chrome or Internet Explorer. For Firefox, use Better Privacy, also an Add-on. Set either one of these to delete everything each time you close your browser, and use the Toolbar Icon as often as you wish when keeping your browser open. I and many other Lounge Members have demonstrated that this simple step does indeed eliminate the problem of Flash (and Silverlight) Cookies.

   Then enjoy your Internet experience without the worry of these Flash Cookies. The Adobe Settings are so easily overridden by any modern website that I no longer use them.