Monday, January 24, 2011

Adobe initiative to let you easily clear 'Flash cookies' from your Mozilla or Google Web browser

In a strong, head-held-high missive, Adobe has detailed a new initiative to bring Flash local storage clearing to Web browser UIs. The new API, NPAPI ClearSiteData will let Firefox and Chrome users clear Flash's Local Shared Objects, or 'Flash cookies,' in the same way that you currently clear cookies and temporary Internet files.

LSOs are very commonly used throughout the Web, but unlike conventional cookies they're a little harder to delete. A lot of websites use them to track you across the Web, but they're also used by sites like YouTube to store your video preferences.

The thing is, you've always been able to delete these LSOs, it's just a bit of a pain in the ass. You have to visit the Flash Global Storage Settings Panel -- and honestly, how many of you knew that? The difficulty of deleting LSOs led to the creation of evercookie, which is likely the main reason behind this new effort from Adobe.

As for when the new API will be rolled out, Chrome Dev will be the first, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. There's no word of when it will be implemented in Firefox, but presumably it will be after the launch of Firefox 4. Opera and Internet Explorer -- who knows!

Adobe initiative to let you easily clear 'Flash cookies' from your Mozilla or Google Web browser originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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