Why these mostly empty hidden files?

[Joseph Sinclair]

Most of that is cache data (e.g. swf's code fragments, etc...).  They do store Flash cookies in .macromedia and/or .adobe, but the directories you see are their cache structure.
They've gotten tricky lately in that they now often use a deleted file for data cache (open a file, unlink it, continue writing; the system has no issue with that but it's harder to read in Linux and impossible in Mac or Windows), which makes their cache dirs look a lot less full than they actually are.

I just wipe out ~/.macromedia and ~/.adobe anytime I have no choice but to use flash to view something; makes life easier.

On 05/03/2011 10:51 PM, Dan Lund wrote:
> Never attribute to malice what can be easily attributed to laziness/hubris :)
> 
> I'm sure it's just flash leaving it's wrappers laying around after camping.
> 
> --Dan
> 
> On May 3, 2011, at 10:45 PM, Andrew Harris wrote:
> 
>> Seems like an unlikely candidate. But we've had less likely candidates.
>>
>> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 10:37 PM, Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Funny.  No, it's more like there's a whole pile of tracking stuff of
>>> some sort that I for one didn't know about.
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 10:33 PM, Andrew Harris <tuna at supertunaman.com> wrote:
>>>> Wow, it's like somebody did work for all those directories and files
>>>> and they don't want to pay the bill. Am I right, Jim?
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 5:42 PM, Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Yeah, I can confirm the same thing in Ubuntu Maverick.
>>>>>
>>>>> WTF is this stuff?
>>>>>
>>>>> Jim
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 5:26 PM,  <joe at actionline.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Today, I was shocked to find a thousand-plus empty hidden directories and
>>>>>> files on my system and I don't know how they got there or why there are
>>>>>> there.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is there any reason why I should not delete them?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There may be more in other places, but the ones I just discovered are
>>>>>> buried deep in these two sub-directories:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /home/joe/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects/2ETARA88
>>>>>> /home/joe/.macromedia/Flash_Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I hate flash for a lot of reasons, but now even more as it seems to be
>>>>>> hiding things on my system -- 310 mostly empty directories in 2ETARA88 and
>>>>>> another 1227 mostly empty directories in flashplayer/sys
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Very annoying.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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