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Delete Flash Cookies to Stop Web Sites from Secretly Tracking You

If you like to keep your browsing private, you probably already clear your history and cookies after a session, but your tracks are not completely gone. There’s also another type of cookie to get rid of called Flash Cookies or Local Shared Objects (LSOs). Today we take a look at how to get rid of these pesky files and improve your privacy.
What are They?
Flash Cookies or LSOs are cookie type files used by Adobe Flash Player and they save your settings and preferences when watching video on a website for better playback. They can also store unique identifiers that keep track of the sites you’re visiting. Some of them will also use the collected data to recreate regular tracking cookies even after you’ve deleted them.
Manual Settings
Note: Changing Flash Settings on the Adobe page is kind of weird, so make sure to check things carefully.
One option is to not allow the LSOs on your machine in the first place. To do this, you need to go to the Global Storage Settings panel on the Adobe site (Link Below) and make the appropriate changes. The Settings Manager on the Adobe site is not a screen shot, but is the actual panel for making changes to how Flash will behave in your browser. If you move the slider all the way to None, then when a Flash app wants to use storage space (insert a Flash Cookie) you’ll need to give it permission.







In this example I set the local storage to None, and now when I go to MySpace and try to play a song, it asks for permission to store the data.






You can also turn them completely off by moving the slider all the way down to none and check the box Never Ask Again. If you this and uncheck the box next to Allow third-party content to store data on your computer, it will keep advertiser flash cookies off your machine, but also makes many flash apps not work.





To delete existing Flash Cookies, click on the Website Storage Settings tab (located all the way to the right of the screen) and click on the Delete all sites button.





You can right-click on a Flash app on a particular page and change the settings as well. Just remember it will only apply to that app on that page, and won’t change the setting globally.






While this method works, it can be tedious and annoying, let’s take a look at some other solutions.
Delete LSOs in Firefox
For users of Firefox, there is a quality Add-on called “BetterPrivacy” which allows you to delete flash cookies after each browsing session.





After installing BetterPrivacy for the first time, go into Options and you’ll be surprised to see how many LSOs are listed.





You can go in and manage different settings like deleting LSOs on exit, application start, by timer, create a shortcut key to delete LSOs and more.





One neat option you might want to select is to add LSO item to the Firefox “Clear History” dialog which isn’t there without the Add-on.







Using CCleaner
If you use IE or any other browser, then another great option for removing LSOs is with CCleaner. By default the Flash Cookies are set to be removed, but you might want to double check to make sure. In the Cleaner section click on the Applications tab, the scroll down to Multimedia and make sure Adobe Flash Player is checked.






When you run an analysis, you will see the results, double click on Multimedia – Adobe Flash Player to see the what it found.






Depending on how much browsing you’ve done and the last time you deleted the LSOs you might be surprised how many are found. Just click Run Cleaner to get rid of them.



When you download CCleaner make sure you’re getting the “Slim” version which does NOT include an attempt to add a worthless toolbar to your machine. We have provided a direct link to the CCleaner Slim below. Another option would be to download it from ninite.com which denies installation of extra Crapware automatically.






Rather than run CCleaner manually, you might want to check out these two articles from The Geek on running it silently via a Hotkey and automatically each night on XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

• Setup CCleaner to Automatically Run Each Night in Windows 7, Vista, and XP
• Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Run CCleaner Silently

Conclusion
For this tutorial we showed Flash Cookies on a Windows system, but they also will show up on your Mac or Linux computer as well. You will need LSOs on your computer for certain Flash Apps to work at the time you’re at the site. However, you don’t need them on your system after you’re done playing a game or listening to music. Flash Cookies are used by websites to track your browsing habits and some recreate regular cookies even after you’ve deleted them. You’ll definitely want to get rid of Flash Cookies (LSOs) if you’re concerned about online privacy. With these tips, and your regular history deletion, it will help you gain better privacy online.
Links

Adobe Flash Player Global Settings Panel


BetterPrivacy Firefox Addon


CCleaner Slim No Toolbar


Flush for OS X

Disable JavaScript in Firefox the Easy Way

Want a quick and easy way to toggle JavaScript on and off in Firefox? Then you will definitely want to take a good look at the JS Switch extension.
Setup
There are three ways to set up access to JS Switch. The first is through the “Customise Toolbar Window”.





To activate the other two you will need to open the “Options Window” and select the method that you prefer best.





If you activate the “Tools Menu” option, there will be a singular entry that will have a check mark beside it when JavaScript is enabled.





The “Status Bar Button” will display in a red color when JavaScript is enabled and in a light gray color when it is not.





JS Switch in Action
For our example we chose to use the “Toolbar Button”. As you can see JavaScript is enabled (red color). To deactivate JavaScript in your browser simply click on the button.





If you already have a webpage loaded like in our example, you just need to refresh that particular page. Until you re-enable JavaScript all webpages that you browse will have their JavaScript disabled. Notice the gray color of the “Toolbar Button”…





Depending on how heavily a particular website uses JavaScript you can expect to see varying results in how the pages look. In our example you can see that AirSet depends heavily on JavaScript and the webpage is practically non-functional.




Conclusion
If you are looking for a quick “no questions asked” method for enabling/disabling JavaScript in Firefox, then this extension will make a nice addition to your browser.
Links

Download the JS Switch extension (Mozilla Add-ons)


Download the JS Switch extension (Extension Homepage)

Disable That Irritating AutoScroll Feature in Firefox

So you try to middle click on a link on a page and miss the link… then the round “Auto Scroll” icon shows up and suddenly the page is moving around and scrolling all by itself. It drives me crazy, so when it was mentioned in the latest Coding Horror article I figured I would write it up in case anybody else wants to disable it.
Note: You can’t disable the same thing in Internet Explorer as far as I can tell. If anybody knows of a way, let me know.




Open up the Options dialog through Tools \ Options, click on the Advanced tab/button, and then uncheck the “Use autoscrolling” box.





The change should be immediate, no need to restart.
Note: This should work on Firefox 2 or 3.

Disable Web Site Window Resizing in Firefox

You might have already seen this tip on Lifehacker recently, but I felt it was important to spread the word on how to stop web sites from resizing your browser (One of my pet peeves).
Just open up the Firefox Options window, and click on the Content tab.





Click the Advanced button across from the “Enable JavaScript”, and you should see the “Advanced JavaScript Settings” dialog.





From here, you just have to uncheck the “Move or resize existing windows” checkbox, and you are done.

Disable YouTube Comments while using Chrome

Are you tired of the comments at YouTube being full of profanity or irritating to look at? Now you can watch videos minus the comments with the No YouTube Comments extension for Google Chrome.
Before
Sometimes reading through the comments at YouTube can be interesting or even fun but at other times they can be a bother to you. It all depends on the contents of the comments (i.e. lots of profanity) and what you would like to have visible while watching videos.




After
Once you have installed the extension all that you will need to do is refresh the page (if you were already watching a video). As you can see any and all signs of the comments section is gone. All nice and clean now…




Conclusion
If you love to check out your favorite videos on YouTube but are annoyed by the multitude of meaningless and profane comments, this extension for Chrome gets the job done.
Links

Download the No YouTube Comments extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

Ditch the RealPlayer Bloat with Real Alternative

It doesn’t happen a whole lot these days, but sometimes you might run across a website that requires you to have Real Player to play media content on a page. Today we take a look at Real Alternative, which lets you check out the media content without installing the obnoxious bloat.
The Problem – Real Player
The problem is RealPlayer which can be a lot of extra bloat to deal with just to watch the occasional RM file or online content. While it may not be as adware ridden as it was a few years ago, it’s far more than you need just to watch play some online content.





Of course it still likes to leave advertisement popups on your desktop, which is completely unacceptable from any program.




Real Alternative
Real Alternative is completely ad free and allows you to play RealMedia files (.ra .rm .rmvb .ram .rpm .rv .rp .rt .rnx .smi .smil) without having to install the bloated RealPlayer. It installs the right plugins to support RM content that is embedded in Web pages. It also comes bundled with Media Player Classic which you can use on your desktop for playing RM files.






After installing, you can go through and set it up according to your preferences.





If you find a site that requires RealPlayer to watch embedded content right click and select Real Player.





It opens up with Media Player Classic to watch the video.





This is definitely a lot better solution than dealing with the huge bloated annoyance of RealPlayer.


Download Real Alternative

Download Videos the Easy Way with Unplug

Needing a quick and easy way to download videos in Firefox? Now you can with the Unplug extension.
Post Installation
Once you have installed the extension and restarted Firefox, you will see this message window regarding the Toolbar Button. Nothing to worry about though…




Options for Unplug
A good place to start with Unplug is with a quick look at the options. In the General Options tab, you can choose how to access Unplug (i.e. the Tools Menu), whether to submit statistical information on websites downloaded from (this is deselected by default to respect your privacy), and see the location of the Rules File.





The Downloader tab lets you choose between “Automatic”, “Save As”, and “ Open Over Current Window” for download style. It also lists supported downloading extensions that Unplug works with, so if one of these is a favorite of yours then that is even sweeter!





In the Advanced tab, you can choose to show results that do not work correctly if you are looking for a complete listing each time you download a video.




Unplug in Action
Once you have Unplug set up to suit your needs, then it is time to have fun downloading. For our example we chose a fan-made Green Lantern movie trailer at YouTube and have set up the Toolbar Button. To download a video, select from one of the following three actions:

• Click on the Toolbar Button
• Go to the Tools Menu and select “Unplug”
• Right click inside the main browser window and select “Unplug”

You will see the following window once Unplug opens. Notice that there are different levels of video quality listed to choose from (terrific!). To start downloading, simply use the drop down menu and select “Save as”.





Once you have clicked on “Save as”, select your download location and rename the file if you so desire. The video shown above had the following “less than desirable” name, so renaming is a good idea.



Conclusion


If you find yourself downloading videos often, then Unplug can certainly provide an easy access way to do so. Before you know it, that “little green fish” will be your best friend!
Links

Download the Unplug extension (version 2.022)

Download YouTube Videos the Easy Way

You can’t be online all the time, and despite the majority of YouTube videos being nut-shots and Lady Gaga parodies, there is a lot of great content that you might want to download and watch offline.
There are some programs and browser extensions to do this, but we’ve found that the easiest and quickest method is a bookmarklet that was originally posted on the Google Operating System blog (it’s since been removed). It will let you download standard quality and high-definition movies as MP4 files. Also, because it’s a bookmarklet, it will work on any modern web browser, and on any operating system!
Installing the bookmarket is easy – just drag and drop the Get YouTube video link below to the bookmarks bar of your browser of choice. If you’ve hidden the bookmark bar, in most browsers you can right-click on the link and save it to your bookmarks.


Get YouTube video






With the bookmarklet available in your browser, go to the YouTube video that you’d like to download.





Click on the Get YouTube video link in your bookmarks bar, or in the bookmarks menu, wherever you saved it earlier.





You will notice some new links appear below the description of the video.





If you download the standard definition file, it will save as “video.mp4” by default.





However, if you download the high definition file, it will save with the same name as the title of the video.





There are many methods of downloading YouTube videos…but we think this is the easiest and quickest method. You don’t have to install anything or use up resources, but you can still get a link to download an MP4 with one click.
Do you use a different method to download Youtube videos? Let us know about it in the comments!

Easily Control a Large Amount of Tabs in Google Chrome

Do things start to get out of control for you when you have a lot of tabs open in Google Chrome? Get control back and easily manage those tabs with the Tab Menu extension.
Before
One of the irritating things about using Chrome is that when you have a large number of tabs open it becomes harder to know exactly which one to open without a lot of “trial and error”. As you can see here some of the tabs no longer display the favicon and some of the tabs all have the same favicon. Either way you go this is not good for quickly finding the tab that you want to view.




Setup
The options are not complicated to sort through but some minor adjustments may help to better personalize how Tab Menu works for you. The default “Keyboard Shortcut” is “Ctrl + m” but can be expanded by adding “Alt and/or Shift” to the combination. You will also be able to modify the appearance of the “Toolbar Icon” if desired. The default setting is for a “static icon” but can be changed to always display the number of tabs open or only display the number when hovering the mouse over the “Toolbar Icon”. You can see that the three tabs open in the “Tab Bar” are also shown in a “Tabs List” below the options.
There are two important points to keep in mind while using the extension:

• The number of open tabs shown on the “Toolbar Icon” pertains to that particular window and its’ tabs only.
• Use of the “Keyboard Shortcut” will open the “Options Page” (instead of the drop-down window) and give you access to the “Tabs List” for a particular window there.

If you have the “Options Page” open you can also view an identical list in the drop-down window. One of the very nice things about this extension is that you can access the “Tabs List” in the manner that best suits your needs.




Tab Menu in Action
Now for the fun part. Here you can see our original window with its’ twenty-four open tabs and our second window with the other three tabs in it.





A close-up view of our “Toolbar Icons” and tab counts. The first thing that we decided to do was to combine all of our tabs into one window by clicking on “Merge Windows”.





One click later and all of our tabs were in the same window with an updated tabs count and a scrollbar for our “Tabs List” in the “Options Page”.





We decided to close one of the tabs shown in the list. The currently opened tab will have a powder blue color highlighting it and any entry you hover over will be lighter blue in color. Whichever entry you are hovering over will also have a “Close X” appear at the right end. Click the “X” and that tab will be instantly gone from both lists…





Hovering your mouse over an entry will also let you see the full title for that particular webpage.





Clicking on a particular entry will immediately focus that tab so that you may read the article, write that important e-mail, etc.





Perhaps you would prefer to conduct a search for a tab instead…just start typing the title/name/URL for the webpage in the text field and watch the list focus on possible matches for your query.





Conclusion
If you suffer from tab overload on a daily basis then Tab Menu will definitely help you to get control of your tabs back.
Links

Download the Tab Menu extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

Easily Manage Your Downloads with Download Statusbar

Ever been sitting around waiting for a download to finish, only to realise that it has been finished for quite some time? It’s much like having the phone conversation with a friend and panicking that you can’t find your phone. Silly, but if you download/speak on your phone often enough, these things tend to happen.
The latter is unfortunately something that no browser addon can prevent. The former, however, is very easily managed. Download Statusbar provides an extremely lightweight method of download management for those who download often enough that things tend to get confusing. The main positive – as opposed to the many download managers available for Firefox: it stays out of your way.
To get the addon, just follow the link at the bottom of this page and follow the prompts. Don’t forget, you’ll need to restart Firefox before it will be enabled.





In action, the large version looks something like this, depending on whether you’ve customized it.





Pretty small as it is, but those little downloads can get in the way when you’ve got more than a couple, and some valuable browser space is taken up. To switch to ‘mini mode’ instead, clicking the Downloads button, then options.






Then just click the little Mini Mode box.





And everything gets quite a bit smaller, even with several downloads displayed. They’re only shown when you click, by the way.





You can always switch back to full mode by clicking the Full Mode button, as long as you’ve enabled it in the options.





The advantage here is that Full Mode allows for a little more information if you hover over your downloads.





One feature to note is the ability to automatically scan downloaded files for viruses using your allocated virus scanner. Just click Options, head to the Virus Scan tab, and choose your Anti-Virus program.





And that’s the gist of the program. No real pretty pictures or anything, just bare bones functionalism. And anyone who uses their browser to download enough to warrant the use of such a program knows, you want nothing more than the essentials.


Install Download Statusbar