399724 - "Clear private data" won't delete "cookies" stored by Flash plugin

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 290456

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Rudolf Polzer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070919 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070919 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.6

Flash stores private data in ~/.macromedia, which basically contains an entry for each .swf you have ever seen. Users of "clear private data" of course want that to be removed too, or else part of their browsing history can be seen in there.

Now the big problem is - how should that be solved? At the very least, the "clear private data" dialog could explain clearly that plugins still may have stored data elsewhere.

In the long term, the plugin interface probably needs to be extended to query and delete data stored by the plugin, but then it will probably take years till Macromedia releases a new version of Flash implementing that (well, it took them multiple years to release the CURRENT Flash version).

In the meantime, it would perhaps be a good idea to include that directory in the "clear private data" dialog (and maybe data stores other plugins use). Why do plugins do that anyway? Can't they just store cookies in Firefox - or does the plugin interface not provide that functionality? If not, why not add it?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go on www.adobe.com with Flash plugin installed
2. use "clear private data"
3. look into ~/.macromedia
Actual Results:  
You'll find a directory called "www.adobe.com" inside it.

Expected Results:  
~/.macromedia should contain NO information about the sites you visited.