Where's This Cookie Coming From?!

I just happened to discover a cookie left by tidaltv.com. What's perplexing and annoying is that even after clearing the history, emptying Safari's cache, and deleting my top sites, the cookie "automagically" appears after a certain amount of time after I delete it. This concerns me, as tidaltv.com appears to be an advertising related site. I can't for the life of me figure out what's causing the cookie to appear. Here's the cookie...

User uploaded file

Can anyone else confirm that this cookie exists on their system and/or offer an explanation as to why I can't get rid of it permanently?

-Steve

Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Sep 6, 2009 3:32 PM

Reply
6 replies

Sep 6, 2009 3:41 PM in response to Shotster

Greetings,

You didn't say that you deleted all your cookies, so unless you do, that and other cookies will remain where they are. If you deleted your cookies and that one keeps coming back, then it would seem that maybe your cookies file is corrupted.

Here's what you can do:

1. Check to see that you haven't bookmarked any sites that were previously Top Sites; if so, remove those bookmarks, then quit Safari.
2. Go to Home/Library/Cookies and delete the Cookies.plist file.
3. Restart Safari and see if that cookie still shows up without you going to any web site. If not, then it would seem that your problem is solved.

Sep 10, 2009 8:32 AM in response to Shotster

Just to add to Doz's good advice:

From this website:

http://machacks.tv/2009/01/27/flushapp-flash-cookie-removal-tool-for-os-x/

For those who do not know about Flash cookies, more properly referred to as Local Shared Objects (LSO), they operate in a similar way to regular browser cookies but are stored outside the purview of your browser, meaning you cannot delete them from within your browser, whether Safari, Firefox, Opera or any other. Typically they are issued from sites or 3rd party sites that contain Adobe Flash content. Since virtually all internet advertising is delivered in Flash, Google/Doudleclick and all other internet advertising companies are sure to be tracking your browsing behavior with Flash cookies. These companies can see you traverse the Internet as you come upon the plethora of sites that contain their embedded advertising. Check out the Wikipedia entry here.

In Mac OS X they are stored in the following location:
/User’s Home Folder/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects

The settings for the Flash cookies are stored in:
/User’s Home Folder/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys

In OS X Local Shared Objects, or Flash Cookies, are appended with a .sol suffix. Flush deletes the Flash cookies (.sol) and their settings.

Flush can be downloaded from that page.

This article covers the issue in more depth:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/

Sep 14, 2009 4:41 PM in response to Klaus1

Klaus1 wrote:
For those who do not know about Flash cookies, more properly referred to as Local Shared Objects (LSO), they operate in a similar way to regular browser cookies but are stored outside the purview of your browser, meaning you cannot delete them from within your browser, whether Safari, Firefox, Opera or any other.


And yet they still show up in the browser's list of cookies? That seems odd.

-Steve

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Where's This Cookie Coming From?!

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