[Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

Greetings all.

Most people are aware of cookies and the privacy implications associated with them (websites tracking your browsing habits, etc), and some of us take measures to limit the amount of personal browsing information available to websites (predominately advertisers) by periodically cleaning cookies.

Not as many people, however, know about flash cookies. Flash allows local storage of a small amount of information independant of the browser's cookie system, and in recent years this has been co-opted by a large number of websites as an alternative to browser based cookies. In fact, some websites have been found to recreate deleted browser cookies based on data obtained from flash cookies (more info).

Because the N900 is flash-capable, it is also susceptible to the accumulation of flash cookies, just like a desktop browser. The good news is, it's relatively easy to clear these.

Adobe provides a service through their website at http://www.macromedia.com/support/do...manager07.html which allows you to manage and erase flash cookies (thought you'd fully cleared your browsing history? Guess again). This website can also be accessed through the N900 browser. The url is a bit cumbersome, so here's a shortened link: http://bit.ly/2fZi

While the presence of cookies (flash or otherwise) probably doesn't represent too much of a threat to your web privacy, why give up any more info about your browsing habits to advertisers than that which is absolutely necessary?

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

One more reason of why flash must die. -_-

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

I'd also like to see JavaScript and Useragents die.

I miss my web1.0...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/0...-by-user-agent

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

Getting Rid of Nasty Adobe Flash Cookies the Cool Linux Way
Or:
EDIT: corrected the above commands

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

Also, install the flashblocker to block those nasty flash ads.

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

Would this break any flash functionality?

thanks

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

Thank DanielMartin, good post.

I've been using this command to rid myself of flash cookies.
find / -name ".macromedia" | xargs rm -rf
or find / -name ".sol" | xargs rm -rf

Beware, that if you type in the wrong address or etc you could delete important file which may cause problems.

I do the first one after any flash web session, since I usually keep flash of till needed.

x

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

btw,
chown root:root /home/user/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects
is enough to stop flash from writing cookies.


All of the plugins I saw simply replaced flash element with an icon. To activate, you usually have to click on the icon. So, it shouldn't break functionality.

Re: [Privacy] Deleting flash cookies on the N900
 

We need a microb plugin like BetterPrivacy
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/

it would make this a non-issue. on every browser exit all flash cookies are deleted.