Flash Player 10.3 gives more control over flash cookies

Adobe released a new beta for Flash Player – V 10.3, which offers the end user greater control over the software's privacy and storage options.

People can now clear local storage, known as Flash Cookies on version of Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome. These Cookies can obviously come in useful, such as for remembering data on sites you visit regularly, but many people have been concerned with advertising targeting systems and on other data that might be collected.

While Web cookies are easily deleted, the cookie system inside Flash is more complex. Adobe have said that Flash Player 10.3 Beta ‘integrates control of local storage with the browser's privacy settings. They added that users now will have a much easier way to clear local storage from the browser interface settings menu, much in the same way that people can delete cookies already from a browser.

Flash Cookies or ‘local shared objects' (LSO) made the headlines recently when the Federal Trade Commission released a report that called on browser makers to include a ‘do not track' option in the software. The FTC specifically mentioned Adobe as they said their cookies gathered are collected regardless of the browser settings, causing potential privacy issues.

Flash Player 10.1 included an in private browsing option which allows users to surf and play video content without having their activity tracked, but now they can delete these LSOs from the browser settings, whether its normal or private browsing.

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