Flash Privacy Settings

[imperium]

Hi folks, I noticed the other day to my utter amazement that while CCleaner deletes the Flash Cookies if you go to the Website Privacy Settings panel after deletion the list of viewed websites are still visible and I am forced to click the Delete All Sites button :o . I would have thought the deletion of the cookies would have made the Website Privacy Settings panel empty. There was literally hundreds of sites on there. I know many people use Firefox with the Better Privacy add-on but I use IE8. It is a pity there is no add-on for Explorer which blocks these LSO's.

[Fly]

Have you made the inclusions and exclusions as in this thread: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=256771&highlight=flash+cookies , post #9 ?

That might help ?

Or not.

I used CCleaner with those settings recently. Afterwards I googled 'Flash security settings' to check things, but all Flash cookies had NOT been removed. There was one Flash cookie of a local shop I visited shortly before using CCleaner. I had to remove it in the Flash settings menu. :-\
Does anyone have an explanation ?

As I stated, a local shop. Don't ask me where I live. ;)

[caspian]

R-Wipe evidently wipes them. But I don't know how to find them to verify. But R-Wipe did clean dat files that Ccleaner and Sweepi left behind.

http://www.r-wipe.com/

[Idontknow]

There is a FFox add-on called "Better Privacy" which enables you to delete all LSO cookies whenever you want (start-up, shutdown, intervall...)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/14217?src=api

[subhrobhandari]

-{ Quote: "There is a FFox add-on called "Better Privacy" which enables you to delete all LSO cookies whenever you want (start-up, shutdown, intervall...)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/14217?src=api" }-

He knows:

-{ Quote: "I know many people use Firefox with the Better Privacy add-on but I use IE8. It is a pity there is no add-on for Explorer which blocks these LSO's. " }-

[noone_particular]

You could always use Eraser to wipe the location they're stored as a scheduled and/or on-demand task.

[SafetyFirst]

I use Flushflash.

You may find this thread interesting: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23249571-Free-Flash-Cookie-Cleaner-Just-Released

[inka]

If you know the path to where the SharedAssets are stored on your PC, CCleaner can handle the job for you.

Open CCleaner, click 'Options' icon, click 'Include' button.

your paths will be different. Mine are:
C:\Documents and Settings\bubba\Application Data\Adobe\Flash Player\AssetCache\*.*
C:\Documents and Settings\bubba\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\*.*
C:\Documents and Settings\bubba\Local Settings\Temp\*.*


In terms of privacy, clearing the SharedObjects is only half the battle.
Adobe are rotten baxters; many of the 200 or so regkeys in my registry here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Macromedia\Shockwave 10\uicontrol
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-snip-1003\Software\Adobe\Shockwave 11
involve "not personally identifiable info" (just GUID bound to your PC, eh?) and various "calling home" settings (um, we're just checking {{every hour}} to see if any updates are available. Yeah that's the ticket, Joe Public will go for that)

[rookieman]

I take it that East-Tec Eraser 2010 should take care of these entries right?

[inka]

-{ Quote: "I take it that East-Tec Eraser 2010 should take care of these entries right?" }-For $49.95, the eAST tEC payware ought to clean the carpets and walk the dog too.

[rookieman]

I payed far from the price you suggested for the product :-X

[siljaline]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fstaal01/flushflash-us.html
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22909209-Free-Flush-Flash-eradicate-those-nasty-flash-cookies

[acuariano]

hey...thanks for this little great app.
also how do you compare this to flash cookie cleaner

[acuariano]

well after visiting again justintv and another site..i found the flash cookies in
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

and had to delete from there.

[siljaline]

-{ Quote: "hey...thanks for this little great app.
also how do you compare this to flash cookie cleaner" }-
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html

[acuariano]

always deny will let me play videos,watch tv ????????

think i did this before and it didn't let me..

[siljaline]

-{ Quote: "always deny will let me play videos,watch tv ????????

think i did this before and it didn't let me.." }-
Is this in reply to my post? (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1586610&postcount=15) Use the app, it's easier than fussing with Adobe settings, but that's just me.

[imperium]

Some great suggestions here. Thanks!:thumb:

[acuariano]

ok what i mean is after using flushflasj=h -third option- and going to adobe player settings manager,i see that the cookie still remains there.

[FanJ]

OZO posted at DSLR (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23063244-Adobe-buys-Omniture-and-we-can-kiss-our-privacy-goodbye~start=20)

-{ Quote: "
There is a couple of points with regards to Flash and your privacy:
• Every time you install a new Flash update your privacy settings are reset back without your consent or notice.
• Even if you deny to keeping cookies (private objects) in Settings Manager - Flash will collect history data anyway. It could be scattered in several places (and even inside settings.sol file).
• Flash starting with ver.10.0.32.18 (10,0,22,87 doesn't exhibit that behavior) tries to install new service "getPlus(R) Helper" and install and run "Adobe DLM" ActiveX control. Be aware about it.

Here is a simple way that I use to manage Flash to respect my privacy:

1. Clean up folders:
%APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects
%APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys

2. Open Settings Manager and adjust all settings going through all tabs.

3. Deny Write permission for Administrators and current user for this folder:
%APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys

That's it. CCleaner is not required here...
" }-

1boss1 posted here at Wilders (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=256771) reply # 13 a screenshot

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=213382&d=1256792923

and :

-{ Quote: "
Here is my settings, storage disabled in settings, storage locations can't be written to, no programs or extensions involved and never worry about it again. Not once have a found a reason for it to be enabled.
" }-

=====

I'm no expert on the whole issue of the privacy issues related to Flash. I'm still trying to found it out too. But I too have found out that the extra includes/excludes in CCleaner are not enough. There was indeed something in my .sol file related to a site I visited. I didn't like that.
So, I checked again my settings at the Adobe Flash Settings site (and removed that "something").
Then I made the .sol file read-only.
And I still have these extra includes/excludes in CCleaner.
I keep an eye on my .sol file in my file-integrity-checker NISFileCheck for changes.
So far, it has worked for me (on XP-home SP3 with IE6).
I have not yet tried Flush Flash nor Flash Cookie Cleaner.

So far for what it's worth...

[acuariano]

2. Open Settings Manager and adjust all settings going through all tabs.
???
what to check here.

[siljaline]

-{ Quote: "2. Open Settings Manager and adjust all settings going through all tabs.
???
what to check here." }-
See my previous post but actually read the URL (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1586610&postcount=15) post back exactly what you do not understand.

[plax]

What I've done with regard to blocking *.sol accumulation is this:

1) cleared all *.sol items under the respective Macromedia subfolder(s)

2) went to Settings Manager at the Adobe site

3) went through the privacy settings and denied 3rd party item storage in Settings Manager and set the remaining settings for optimal privacy.

4) saved the Settings Manager settings

5) set the file attributes for the 2 settings.sol files created from my Adobe Settings Manager session to read-only (to retain my privacy settings).

6) set the file attribute for the subsequently acquired settings.sxx file to read-only as well

7) test-monitored the Macromedia subdirectory structure for new items for a number of months.

This is an XP system with FF (Better Privacy plugin installed) and IE, as well as CCleaner. During the past several months, I've observed no *.sol cookies being accepted/retained in the Macromedia subdirectory structure.

The question now becomes: Is this actually working, or do I merely have a false sense of security since both my visual inspection of the Macromedia subdirectory structure and Better Privacy's consistent checking upon FF session closure continue to tell me that no new *.sol cookies have been stored?

Any comments will be appreciated.

[plax]

Other relevant observations:

Just days ago, I upgraded my Flash Player to v10.0.42.34. Importantly, my settings and *.sol preclusion functionality still seem to be intact - I did NOT have to perform the Settings Manager process again.

Additionally, the "Adobe DLM" (or Download Manager) is merely a temporarily installed application that facilitates the download of the new Flash Player version. It auto-installs from the Adobe site during the Flash Player upgrade process along with a RunOnce registry value which uninstalls it upon the next restart of the computer.

Further, it is necessary to upgrade the Flash Player component for Internet Explorer and the one for Firefox separately (that's two separate upgrades). The Flash Player "ActiveX" control item is the essential component of the Flash Player instance that interfaces with Internet Explorer. Whereas the Flash Player "plugin" item is the essential component of the Flash Player instance that interfaces with Firefox. Once installed, both the ActiveX and the plugin items should be visible in your system's add/remove programs list.

If I'm wrong about something please don't hesitate to correct me. But my description above seems to bare out as accurate from my testing, observation, and research.

Hopefully this information may be helpful to some.