Deflash Script
Many people are aware of HTTP cookies, generally used to add statefulness to the otherwise stateless HTTP protocol. Great for session tracking, preference persistence, etc. Also great for privacy invasion and general ad tracking. Due to the perceived privacy issues, many users delete their browser cookies frequently.
Unfortunately Adobe Flash contains the seldom publicized ability to create it’s own persistent tracking objects outside of the control of your browser. It isn’t very easy to clear these persistent flash objects, and due to being relatively unknown, marketers are now using them to “respawn” traditional HTTP cookies. I.e. when a site wants to track you it will set an HTTP cookie AND a flash “cookie”. If the page detects later that you have a Flash cookie but no HTTP cookie it will recreate aka “respawn” the HTTP cookie using the Flash data.
I’ve created a script to delete these Flash cookies from the default location for them. It is a linux shell script, so unfortunately Windows users are left in the cold.
I add it to my crontab to ensure that they are frequently being deleted. It attempts to use the GNU “Shred” utility for a more secure deletion.
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