BetterPrivacy Firefox Add-on Kills Flash Cookies

If you hear something repeated often enough, then that “something” takes on a veneer of truth. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it is true of course – but, it appears to be true. The “truth” regarding Internet site cookies, falls into that category.

Most of us have heard that “truth” – without cookies (and now, Flash cookies), your Web experience would be terrible. You’d be starting from scratch each time you did anything on a given site online. Or, something along that line.

Nonsense! For years, I have deleted cookies at every Browser shut down, and have experienced no perceptible difference in performance when visiting the same 30 or so sites, that I visit every day

Here’s the reality:

Cookies are there for the benefit of advertisers; not the web site visitor – plain and simple. Keep in mind, that it’s critically important to advertisers to generate advertising that is specific to the web site visitor at the time of the visit – not later, but right then. And a cookie is the tool that facilitates this happening.

Luckily, Internet browsers can be set to allow full user control over cookies including accepting, rejecting, or wiping private data which includes wiping cookies. That is, until recently.

It appears that a user’s decision to control cookies, in this way, is simply not acceptable to advertisers and certain web sites, and so, we now have the Flash Cookie (LSO) – Local Shared Objects.

There is a major advantage for an advertiser to employ Flash cookies, not the least of which is; they are virtually unknown to the average user. Equally as important, from an advertisers perspective is; they remain active on a system even after the user has cleared cookies and privacy settings.

This practice of  web sites dropping Flash cookies onto your computer, which occurs without your knowledge or permission,  according to some in the security community, is akin to hacking. Frankly, I agree.

If you think this practice is restricted to shady web sites, you’d be wrong. Of the top 100 web sites, 50+ use Flash Cookies. So, I was not particularly surprised, when I found some of my favorite sites involved in this invasive practice.

I first wrote on the issue of Flash Cookies back in September 2009, and since then, I’ve watched as these obnoxious web trackers and privacy invaders multiply like a virus.

Quick Flash cookie facts:

They never expire

Can store up to 100 KB of information compared to a text cookie’s 4 KB.

Internet browsers are not aware of those cookies.

LSO’s usually cannot be removed by browsers.

Using Flash they can access and store highly specific personal and technical information (system, user name, files,…).

Can send the stored information to the appropriate server, without user’s permission.

Flash applications do not need to be visible.

There is no easy way to tell which flash-cookie sites are tracking you.

Shared folders allow cross-browser tracking – LSO’s work in every flash-enabled application

No user-friendly way to manage LSO’s, in fact it’s incredible cumbersome.

Many domains and tracking companies make extensive use of flash-cookies.

If you value your privacy, then without a doubt you need to control these highly invasive objects, and if you are a Firefox user there is a solution – BetterPrivacy – a free Firefox add-on.

From the BetterPrivacy page:

“Better Privacy serves to protect against not delectable, long-term cookies, a new generation of ‘Super-Cookie’, which silently conquered the internet.

This new cookie generation offers unlimited user tracking to industry and market research. Concerning privacy Flash- and DOM Storage objects are most critical.

This add-on was made to make users aware of those hidden, never expiring objects and to offer an easy way to get rid of them – since browsers are unable to do that for you”.

Download at: Mozilla

Simple HTTP cookies (ordinary cookies), can be subject to attack by cyber criminals, so it won’t be long before flash cookies will be subject to the same manipulation. Better you should learn how to control them now – not later.

Privacy, in all areas of our life is under constant attack, but that shouldn’t mean that we give up. We need to learn to fight back with every tool that’s available.

I have tried to write this article in a non-technical way, to make it easy for the average computer user to understand. For a more detailed breakdown on flash cookies, and the danger they represent to personal privacy, checkout The Electronic Privacy Information Center.

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