As stated on Wikipedia.com "A zombie cookie is any HTTP cookie that is recreated after deletion from backups stored outside the web browser's dedicated cookie storage. This makes them very difficult to remove. These cookies may be installed on a web browser that has opted to not receive cookies since they do not completely rely on traditional cookies".
Almost all of the internet uses Adobe Flash Plugin to provide online video capabilities to the web. But this is not all what this is designed for. More than half of the internet’s top websites use a little known capability of Adobe’s Flash plug-in to track users and store information about them.
Flash cookies are used by many of the net’s top websites for a variety of purposes, from setting default volume levels on video players to assigning a unique ID to users that tracks them no matter what browser they use.
Websites can store up to 100K of information in the plug-in, 25 times what a browser cookie can hold. Sites like Pandora.com also use Flash’s storage capability to pre-load portions of songs or videos to ensure smooth playback.
Some Flash-cookie (LSO) properties in short...
- they are never expiring - staying on your computer for an unlimited time.
- by default they offer a storage of 100 KB (compare: Usual cookies 4 KB).
- browsers are not fully aware of LSO's, They often cannot be displayed or managed by browsers.
- via Flash they can access and store highly specific personal and technical information (system, user name, files,...).
- ability to send the stored information to the appropriate server, without user's permission.
- Flash applications do not need to be visible
- there is no easy way to tell which Flash-cookie sites are tracking you.
- shared folders allow cross-browser tracking, LSO's work in every flash-enabled application
- the Flash company doesn't provide a user-friendly way to manage LSO's, In fact it's incredible cumbersome.
- many domains and tracking companies make extensive use of Flash-cookies.
All modern browsers now include fine-grained controls to let users decide what cookies to accept and which to get rid of, but Flash cookies are handled differently. These are fixed through a web page on Adobe’s site, where the controls are not easily understood (There is a panel for Global Privacy Settings and another for Website Privacy Settings — the difference is unclear). In fact, the controls are so odd, the page has to tell you that it is the control, not just a tutorial on how to use the control.
There are ways, if you don't want to be tracked. One cool way is to use Private browsing, which is available in all major Browsers. There are tool available that can help you delete all the cookies, that is just for time being, because Technology is ever developing, who knows something new comes up another day and it will take up all your important browsing history.
Tools :
* Better Privacy extension for Firefox -
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623
* Ccleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/
I could not found any tool for Chrome. While browsing all of the browser setting for Chrome, i only found "Delete all Cookies". This thing worked it cleared all the cookies including the flash-cookies also.
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