Adobe Flash, The Spy in Your Computer

[Lode]

HI,
I just discovered this article, and would like to bring it to the attention of the forum:

"Adobe Flash, The Spy in Your Computer"
http://www.welivesecurity.com/2010/10/0 ... er-part-1/

[Peter2150]

Interesting, but this is one of the reasons I use Sandboxie, ShadowDefender. When I am done all that crap is gone.

[rpljhun]

That article is 4 years ago. And I don't think Adobe Flash are spying. If you think so, then it the same to think that all browsers are spying you since they have information e.g. visited pages, forms and search bar entries, passwords, download list entries, cookies(store information about websites you visit such as site preferences, login status, and data used by plugins), cached web content and offline web content, and user data. Cookies can also be used by third parties to track or profile you across websites and you can get these information by script. Since privacy is the issue, it is not enough to conclude that they are spying you.

If your privacy is your concern you can used Private Browsing for Firefox and Incognito for Chrome it will not save information. Starting with Flash Player 10.1, Flash Player supports private browsing which will automatically clear any data it might store and so that article concern is gone.

[Dun]

Nothing new. That's why I have separate Sandbox for browser with flash + always incognito

[Lode]

Thank you.

I still see the page where you can disable or enable the same spy features:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/docum ... nager.html

So I doubt that issue is obsolete.
I saw no previously stored websites I visited. Maybe thanks to Sandboxie. I just changed some settings on that page while not sandboxed to make sure they stick.

Also using Ghostery might help. No need to let Google put an info bubble around me either.

[Guest10]

There are no templates in Sandboxie that you can select that will allow Flash cookies to be saved outside of the sandbox.
If you wanted to allow Flash cookies to be saved (and I know that you do not), you would have to go out of your way to create a setting that would allow it.

[Lode]

Thank you. Good to know.