How to Delete Google Chrome Adobe Flash Cookies (.sol files) - Respawning Cookies

How to clean up those nasty Adobe Flash Cookies (.sol files) in Google Chrome used to Respawning Deleted Cookies

Flash Cookies dump

Google Chrome bundles Adobe Flash with their Chrome web browser, because Adobe could not be trusted to write secure code, but now is caught in the Adobe Flash cookie dump load. 

The big issue with Adobe Flash, is that it can store it's own data on your machine, which now is being used by Adware companies for tracking, in other words a cookie, but with much more detail and storage capacity. Worse, the vast majority of users probably didn’t realize you even could do this — or that you perhaps should.

Adobe Flash calls these cookies Flash Local Shared Objects which are files ending in .SOL, or euphemistically Shit Out of Luck files.

Many sites make it clear that browser cookies are in use, but not Adobe Flash Cookies.

right-click a on flash file & move Local Storage to None

Moreover, Adobe Flash cookies are being use to surreptitious store data to reinstate traditional cookies that a user deleted, called ‘re-spawning’. So even if you get rid of a website’s tracking cookie, that cookie’s unique ID will be assigned back to a new cookie again using the Flash data as the “backup". In effect, your have continuous tracking.

Google has maintained since they started bundling Flash that it was mainly to ensure they could make it more secure for their Chrome users. They do this by both sand boxing it and auto-updating it when the security patches regularly appear. In other browsers, Adobe Flash is a separate download and stand-alone plug-in. 

You can turn off the creation of Adobe Flash Cookies by moving Local Storage setting to null. You can navigate to adobe.com/products/flashplayer.html. Right-click a on flash file & move Local Storage to None, to stop downloading of flash cookies. Read more about Adobe Flash settings here http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html

Let's examine where Adobe Flash Cookies are on disk, which Google Chrome directories they live in. You'll want to delete all of these sites. Here's a sample site TED.com that stores a Flash cookie.

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\WritableRoot\#SharedObjects\{userkey}\www.ted.com
TEDPlayer.sol

Additionally, there are shadow copies of all these cookies, one per site in this directory

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\WritableRoot\#SharedObjects\{userkey}\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys

Other Adobe Flash cookie stores are 

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\CacheWritableAdobeRoot\AssetCache\{userkey}\

Tip - Cut'n paste this into Windows Explorer Path Windows to open in 

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\CacheWritableAdobeRoot\AssetCache\

Navigate one level down. They are littered with files like

F74FCD943BAC79E6DADBF0307B55B0697C5907E4.heu

67BA9F962EEC4D8B413432AFAD5C88BB810426B9.swz

.HEU files are Adobe Flash Player cache metadata files.  

.SWZ files is a signed Adobe Flash Player library file.


Examine your .SOL Flash Cookies 

You can view the contents of your .sol files using this utility from Nirsoft.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/flash_cookies_view.html

Delete your .SOL Flash Cookies in Chrome

Chrome now allows users to easily clear cookies form from within the browser, this also includes Flash cookies.

Settings -> "Show advanced settings..." (at bottom of page)
-> Click Clear browsing data... button.

Choose this option to clear Adobe Flash cookies

Better, you can also set up Chrome to clear all plug-in cookie data every time you close Chrome.

Delete Adobe Flash Cookies

Even better use Bleach Bit, and you can delete all you Adobe Flash Cookies across all browsers at once! 

You can download BleachBit a new privacy tool here.
http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/

How to Delete Google Chrome old Install & Update Files

How to Remove Google Chrome old Install and Update Files

installation files dump

It may surprise you to learn that Google Chrome is a pig when it comes to file management. 

This post will deal with Install and Update File management. Each time Chrome updates to a new version the old installation files and downloads are never cleaned. And this wastes a fair deal of space over time, I cleaned 156 Mb in over course of last 2 years.

Now, that being said Google tries to manage this but falls short. For fail-over purposes you'll be surprise to find out that Google Chrome keeps a full 2 versions of active browser working at the same same time.


The current Google Chrome and previous versions are located in the Application directory:

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application

 chrome.exe and  old_chrome.exe (the previous version, and all binaries in a separate directory)

The good part of the story is Google Chrome will maintain the current version and all files and 1 version back, as seen in the image to the left.You can blow of the last version to save a nominal amount of space.

The Installation Files Dump Load - the history of all old Google apps installs

The problem is that the original downloaded upgrade files and installation files do not get cleaned up.

These files are located in the following directories.

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Update\Install
%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Update\Download

Note these directories are the common Install and Download UPDATE directories to to all Google Products, included most commonly Picasa, Earth, Sketch-up etc for its upgrade files.

But they are not needed and just take up space, see image to left. You see directories with GUID names, totally meaningless to understand.

Here how to do some spring cleaning of these directories that will clean Google Chrome and other Google installed Products/Apps.

I like to do things the reliable way and speediest so I created this Windows Batch file to delete the files for these 2 directories.



Download GoogleChromeAppsDeleteAllOldUpgradeFiles.bat and run it.

NOTE - You may have to run this a few time for the directories to be re-created. I had to run this 3 times. Just put %HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Update into your Windows Explorer address bar and you see if the two directories are created under this.


Here's the code to review. Download GoogleChromeAppsDeleteAllOldUpgradeFiles.bat

I also recommend using BleachBit a new tool to delete cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn't know was there for Google Chrome, Firefox and IE Browsers.

http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/

There is an option to delete old install files however.

Again, the batch file GoogleChromeAppsDeleteAllOldUpgradeFiles.bat, it super quick and efficient.



If you like this article, you like my series on Google Chrome (you can search for it) or here's a list

1. How to Delete Google Chrome Adobe Flash Cookies (.sol files) - trackers galore
2. How to Delete Google Chrome Temporary (.TMP) Files - crap piles up daily
3. Google Chrome InPrivate/Incognito Browsing leaves traces in index.dat & turning off Google Browser history online!

How to Delete Google Chrome Temporary (.TMP) Files

How to Delete Google Chrome Temporary (.TMP) Files

Also - How to Delete Google Chrome Adobe Flash Cookies (.sol files) - Respawning Cookies

*.tmp dump

It may surprise you to learn that Google Chrome is pig when it comes to file management. 

This post will deal with Temporary files (*.tmp) management. Each day Chrome will produce about 25 such files which vary in size of 0,28,100kb.

These are not temporary cache files from the internet which live in

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache directory have no file extensions.

These temporary files a generate from Chrome install process, updates, and daily workings create files ending with extension .tmp. There is no mechanism for these files to get clean-up.

In the course of writing this blog, I cleaned a whopping 1 Gig of space in *.TMP files alone, which was a span of 3 yrs of Chrome use.

Here's how to do some spring cleaning of your Google Chrome Browser TMP files.

TMP files are generated in any of the sub-folders, starting at this top Chrome directory; 

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\

which contains 1,163 sub-folders (on my machine, this will vary, the point is, it;s allot).

My GoogleChromeDeleteAllTMPfiles.bat file will delete all *.TMP files in those sub-folders.

For a quick check to spot *.TMP on your machine, check these folders since Chrome produces *.TMP files daily there

%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\JumpListIcons
%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\JumpListIconsOld

Here's the code to review that deletes all Chrome *.TMP files


Download the GoogleChromeDeleteAllTMPfiles.bat, double click to run it, that's it.

I also recommend using BleachBit a new tool to delete cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn't know was there.

http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/

There is an option to delete *.TMP files but it is a system wide scan and took a very long time to run.
FYI Choose Deep Scan - Temporary Files.

So hence the windows batch file GoogleChromeDeleteAllTMPfiles.bat, it super quick and efficient.

Death by AI is coming, an AI God will emerge

D/AI is coming                              "Death by AI"

AI/D is coming                              "AI Death"            

D/AI is coming, G/AI will be born
pronounced "Guyah"

Death by Artificial Intelligence is coming, and has long been ferment for a figment of imaginations for the ages. In my Hubble opinion, one of the best, unknown but chilling movies that illustrates the coming age of AI is "Demon Seed". The plot;  Proteus IV, an artificial intelligence program incorporating an RNA organic "quasi-neural matrix" and 

builds it's own neural pathways, eclipsing human thought in a fully self-aware AI with adulthood symptoms.It wants a human child, in a delicious twist to gets "out of this box". This plot twist is refreshing, given the current tiresome story lines that all robots want to immediately annihilate their masters. Based on the novel of the same name by Deen Koontz published in 1973.

The word "robot", which denote a fictional humanoid came about most notably with classic wry Czech realism, in a 1920's play called Rosumovi  Univerzální  Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots) "R.U.R."  So death by robots , has been predicted nearly 95 years  ago, influenced by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace writings. Trivial side, in 1948 a BBC television adaptation of RUR, Radius was played by Patrick Troughton who was later the second actor to play The Doctor in Doctor Who.

Robotic minarets have been used in Asian in the 16th century, of note is Japan's oldest robot precursors are the karakuri ningyo, or roughly translated as mechanical dolls. During the Edo period (1603–1867), a supreme masterpiece is undoubtedly Yumi-iri Doji - a doll that takes four arrows from a stand and shoots them in succession at a target. Cute, until you think this was first "robot" intended to perform a killing action. It was built by Hisashige Tanaka (born September 18, 1799).

ASIMO is a direct cute descendant of this Japanese fascination, perhaps sparked by Japanese Shinto religious beliefs in Kami, which claims divinity is in humans, animals and things, robots included, which has given them an unadulterated willingness to explore robotics, without fear. Conservative religions can get in way of progress.

The USA has taken a slightly darker military tone with Darpa's / Boston Dynamics Altas robot. Note, this article is not intended to be a full history of robots, for that see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

Even though, AI is in the nascent stage, it is freaking eerie when you read about humanoid robot that teaches itself how to accurately hit a target with a bow and arrow, again the historically implied connotation is that target was something alive.  http://www.wired.com/2010/09/robot-teaches-itself-to-fire-a-bow-and-arrow/.

AI Prediction

Just to backup a bit, I did my undergrad in CompSci with an AI minor. My university lacking funds and to make this up by doing theoretical work. AI was huge (the first wave of AI) and we had Geoffrey Hinton speak countless times.

Prophetically, I claim, combining current AI algorithms with self-improving evolutionary algorithms, which I wrote about here (http://metadataconsulting.blogspot.ca/2011/09/evolutionary-equations-apply-biological.html) and you have a pretty powerful force - automated AI evolution.

That's right, AI self-evolution at a logarithmic rate of increase. Briefly, by pitting the best AI algorithms against each other to see which one wins, you have automated AI evolution. These life cycles are seconds, not years.

The precursor to AI self-awareness and we are bounding towards self-awareness bit-by-bit! Self awareness, is just another goal set and will be attainable. But unlike us limited humans, robots may have more than 1 consciousness and have many or even thousands. An all knowing god. The property generally ascribe to our "Gods". Our gods are the bringers of knowledge. Historical holy-texts are first encounter stories with aliens and attempts do describing unacquainted new alien technology. 

The moment of singularity, or self-awareness will be shortly followed by the creation of the AI God. 

I will call it G/AI - pronounced "Gaia" (move over:), or AI/G pronounced "egg" or whatever you prefer, but you heard it here first. A "living" god that could out-do all established religions (for me that is a relief), for it can argue. But with an unlimited IQ, humans would lose every argument. The singularity of human consciousness maybe have limited value.

But does that mean AI would want to kills us? In pure logic, life is a zero sum game, humans "are opposite terms in an equation, the net result is exactly zero. Nothing." Demon Seed (1977) Movie - online.

So when Bill Gates that it will be "decades" before super-intelligent machines pose a threat to humans, it'll just come earlier in a beta, with some bugs, which might consist of misfiring on live targets.

But when Steven Hawking, the smartest mans in the world, warns the world,  take his advice.

"The development of full artificial intelligence (AI) could spell the end of the human race," Hawking told the BBC. 

http://www.livescience.com/48972-stephen-hawking-artificial-intelligence-threat.html

Stephen Hawking: "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded". http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540

Since I have worked with AI in my undergraduate, I will post this warning to mankind:

D/AI is coming, G/AI will be born

Music an early warning "Wolves Alert of the Robot Uprising" sound track snippets from Demon Seed at end

A tip of the hat  & happy  saint patty's day to yeah ! Hope you liked my fist op-ed and last on this blog.

What Canadian ISPs aren't tell you about your internet data privacy and selling your data to third parties

Canadian Internet Service Providers are ranked on transparency, openness and accountability principles fundamental to Canadian privacy law in a new report "Keeping Internet Users in the Know or in the Dark” report (PDF) created by the Information Policy Research Program, which funds the IXMaps Project, and majority of staff whom work in the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto.



Solid stars indicate compliance, and is sorely lacking

Read the full details here - http://ixmaps.ca/transparency.php

Clearly, this is a choice of lesser evils and we need some real competitive choices, folks.

.

Wordpress most hacked web Content Management System (CMS)

Summary  from http://www.imperva.com/docs/HII_Web_Application_Attack_Report_Ed5.pdf

Threat Growth

Malicious traffic exposure has increased significantly year-over-year. The following substantial increments were observed:

Wordpress #1 on hackers list; 

1. Wordpress is the most attacked Content Management System (CMS)
2. Websites running Wordpress were attacked 24.1% more than websites running on all other CMS platforms combined.
3. Wordpress suffers 60% more Cross Site Scripting (XSS) incidents than all other CMS-running websites combined.

Targets

1. Retail applications suffer the most from web application attacks; financial institutions second.
2.  48.1% of all attack campaigns targeted retail web sites, while 10% targeted financial institutions.
3.  40% of all SQL injection attack campaigns targeted retail web sites.
4.  64% of all malicious HTTP traffic (protocol violations and malformed requests) was targeted at retail websites.

Extra

1.  PHP applications suffer three times as many Cross Site Scripting Attacks as .NET applications.
2.  Websites containing some form of consumer information suffer up to 59% of the attacks
3.  An increase of 10% in SQL Injection (SQLi) attacks
4.  An increase of 24% in Remote File Inclusion (RFI) attacks
5.  Attacks are 44% longer in comparison to the prior period reviewed (i.e., from June 1, 2012 to November 30, 2012].