This week, I was wondering exactly how Flash movies and games remembered you, and how save files could be stored. I realized that this must be some sort of cookie, so I did some researching. I came across information on Local Shared Objects, or LSOs, which work exactly like cookies, allowing Flash movies to store 100 kb of data (or more, if you allow it) on a user's computer. These files are usually found at C:/Documents and Settings/[USER]/Application Data/Macromedia/Flash Player on a Windows computer.
To disable Flash movies from storing LSOs on your computer, you can go to Adobe's site to limit the amount of data that movies can store on your computer. You can also manage all your current LSOs.
A Firefox extension is also available that allows you to manage all LSOs. Objection can be downloaded from MozDev.org.
by MattMik
However, I find that disabling cookies does not always work, and sometimes a list of sites I've been visiting is still on my computer under the same folder the cookies are stored in. So, I've made it so that when I turn on my computer, a BASH script using RMDIR is run that asks me if I want to delete the directory that the cookies are in, so all of the files are gone, and no one knows where I've been.
There are disadvantages to disabling LSOs. For example, games will not be able to create save files on your computer, and the volume on videos on YouTube will not be the same from page to page. In my opinion, this is just a small price to pay for privacy!
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