Flash cookies

[emorrp1]

Hi, was anyone else aware of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Shared_Object

[thx1138]

Yes, since i used Bleachbit for the first time.
I'm pretty new to Linux (1 year, the last 6 months very happy with Mint and Puppy), so i was sure, that flash thingy was a windows problem. I was really surprised, how much time Bleachbit spent in Flash related directories.

[DrHu]

viewtopic.php?f=58&t=31135&p=179102&hilit=flash+cookies#p179102

[lexon]

I have found flash cookies in two directories under .macromedia. One is #SharedObjects, the other is Sys. I delete them after every session. Flash Player re-creates the directories the next time I use Flash Player and inserts the new cookies. Works for me.

lexon

[lexon]

I found this Mozilla Add-On you might consider.
For those not familiar with the Better Privacy Add-on, it specifically finds Flash Cookies (LSOs) and deletes them, either manually or automatically when the browser closes.
I have yet to try this Add-On.
Also, don't forget to go into RichResults and set History to 0. The default in Firefox is 12 items in History even if you set Preferences to remove all items.

lexon

[Fred]

I use tmpfs mounts to deal with this issue. 1st, I don't trust Fire Fox quit enough, and 2nd, some sites don't want to work right if you throw their cookies away as you get them. They want to see them on your drive while you are at their site.

Fred

[linuxviolin]

lexon, why add another plugin to Firefox when the solution given is so easy and permanent?

[lexon]

I use tmpfs mounts to deal with this issue. 1st, I don't trust Fire Fox quit enough, and 2nd, some sites don't want to work right if you throw their cookies away as you get them. They want to see them on your drive while you are at their site.

Fred

Because I choose what I want. I have all my bookmarks. I have never, ever had any issues by clearing All Firefox data after closing Firefox. Preferences is set up so No data is retained.

lexon

[lexon]

lexon, why add another plugin to Firefox when the solution given is so easy and permanent?

I would only get the Add-On to try it out to let others know how it works. Some non techie people might like that path.

I saw the suggestion in the link but this symbolic link thingy does not make sense to me so I just use the GUI and go into the File Manager and delete the two directories. I do not have to bother with the Command Line. Works for me.

lexon

[linuxviolin]

I saw the suggestion in the link but this symbolic link thingy does not make sense to me so I just use the GUI and go into the File Manager and delete the two directories. I do not have to bother with the Command Line. Works for me.

Ok but with the solution given you have not to delete the directories because there is nothing, the symbolic link prevents "the storage of data or the creation of empty [or not] (and potentially embarrassing) directories"
"I do not have to bother with the Command Line." Hmm, just copy and paste the command in a terminal and type Enter, it's "to bother"?

But as you said, you choose what you want.

P.S.= I guess the Preferences of Firefox, even set to remove all items, don't remove these Flash "things".

For more information about what is /dev/null, see at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//dev/null

[lexon]

I found this Mozilla Add-On you might consider.
For those not familiar with the Better Privacy Add-on, it specifically finds Flash Cookies (LSOs) and deletes them, either manually or automatically when the browser closes.
I have yet to try this Add-On.
Also, don't forget to go into RichResults and set History to 0. The default in Firefox is 12 items in History even if you set Preferences to remove all items.

lexon

I have found out BetterPrivavy Add-On does not remove all the cookies. I removed BetterPrivacy Add-On.
I just delete the directory #SharedObjects and the directory Sys. Takes but a few seconds. Flash restores them next brower opening.
Works foe me.

lexon

[linuxviolin]

lexon, I'm sorry, I would not be too insistent but I really do not understand your refusal to apply this simple solution which also you would avoid the need to delete these directories at the Firefox close... But of course you do what you want.

[mint123]

I use tmpfs mounts to deal with this issue. 1st, I don't trust Fire Fox quit enough, and 2nd, some sites don't want to work right if you throw their cookies away as you get them. They want to see them on your drive while you are at their site.

Fred

I figure it's better to dredge up an older thread than make a new one for this. How exactly do you assign the .adobe and .macromedia folders to tmpfs? Working with the code I used for the /tmp directory and Firefox cache, (tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0) would I change it to:

Code: Select all

tmpfs /home/USER/.macromedia tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /home/USER/.adobe tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0


Is the "defaults,noatime,mode=....." part necessary? I don't know what this signifies even in the FF line.

[cxexa]

I make the two directories that hold this stuff Read-Only. I have not had any issues with this method. I check the directories every once in a while and they remain empty.

~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys
~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects/blahblahblah

[mint123]

[quote="cxexa"][/quote]

This seems to work fine for me too. Thanks!

[linuxviolin]

mint123 and cxexa. Usually tmpfs mount is /dev/shm (look in your fstab file) so, you just need to replace the two folders by two links to /dev/shm...

But just a warning. You should probably not touch to the .adobe folder but rather to the Flash_Player folder which is inside .adobe. As I said in this post:

About the .adobe folder, you should be quite careful. If you have the PDF Reader, Adobe Reader, for instance, you will have some useful folders in .adobe like: Acrobat and Linguistics. Maybe you should not touch to these folders, I guess... Like said a guy in a comment on the commandlinefu.com web page: "Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 stops working for me (Ubuntu 10.04 x64) after doing this"

Or just use an app like BleachBit which clean all of these and more easily...

[colyn]

for i in ~/.adobe ~/.macromedia ; do ( rm $i/ -rf ; ln -s /dev/null $i ) ; done

Copy/paste and save the above line as a .xsessionrc in your /home directory. Notice the dot at the beginning.

You won't have any flash cookies to delete..

[Ebere]

for i in ~/.adobe ~/.macromedia ; do ( rm $i/ -rf ; ln -s /dev/null $i ) ; done

Copy/paste and save the above line as a .xsessionrc in your /home directory. Notice the dot at the beginning.

You won't have any flash cookies to delete..

What exactly, does that do, colyn ?

[colyn]

for i in ~/.adobe ~/.macromedia ; do ( rm $i/ -rf ; ln -s /dev/null $i ) ; done

Copy/paste and save the above line as a .xsessionrc in your /home directory. Notice the dot at the beginning.

You won't have any flash cookies to delete..

What exactly, does that do, colyn ?

Notice the /dev/null? This is the bottomless pit so to speak.. Flash cookies go into the pit never to be seen or heard from again....