[WEB4LIB] Re: * Frenzy Begins Over Cookie Alternative

[D.H. Mattison]

I think what the story's referring to is the use of Flash player browser
plugin technology to display advertising. See John Dowdell's take on this on
the Macromedia site, "Those *%$&#* Flash ads!!"
(http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/jd_forum/jd023.html). Here's what he says
near the end of this piece:

"Instead of storing data in the browser's cookie file, Macromedia Flash
stores data in its own file. You can access the controls by context-clicking
on any Macromedia Flash content, choosing Settings, and clicking the Local
Storage tab. The default size for how much data a domain can store is
100K—large for ads but moderate (some have said "too small!") for most
non-ad uses. You can set your player to never accept data from a particular
domain but, so far, I've found it easier to set my global data settings low
so that any request for local storage will display a permissions dialog
box."

If you're not using a browser that has the Flash player installed as a
plugin, you won't ever see these ads or need to be concerned about this
issue.

David Mattison
Victoria, BC, Canada
dmattison at shaw.ca
Tiki Wiki Hut: http://www.davidmattison.ca/tiki
Ten Thousand Year Blog: http://www.davidmattison.ca/wordpress

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Rudy Leon
Sent: March 31, 2005 4:27 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: * Frenzy Begins Over Cookie Alternative


I'm willing to expose my ignorance to get an answer I can use to
protect myself -- The ClickZ article discusses a "flash browser" and
the Macromedia discusses a Flash Player.... As far as I know, when I
have allowed Flash to install itself, I've never installed a player or
browser, or been given access to anything that controlled it. I'm on a
public computer at the moment (not my work or home computer) and
cannot find any such player installed....

Can anyone explain what I'm missing here?