Version Info
FlashPlayer Plugin version: 11.9.900.117 (and many version before)
Firefox version : 24.0 (and many versions before)
Windows Version : Windows 7-SP1
Directory of Files : C:\Windows\Temp
Details
I noticed this started all of a sudden over the last year or so, when my virus scans started taking longer and longer and more and more files were being scanned even though no windows updates were done to the computer and regular windows cleanups (Administrative tools->Free Up disk space app) were performed. Before that it was fine.
It doesn't happen right away. It happens after many web browsing sessions (may take several hours to reproduce) of opening and closing the Firefox web browser and browsing a lot of Flash based websites. Once it starts every single website that contains a flash player object cause the files to occur (In other words, it's fine for a while and then all of a sudden it starts, even if you restart Firefox).
There is 1 file for every flashplayer object on the page (example: 2 flashplayer items cause 2 FAP####.tmp files to be generated). The only way to stop this (temporarily) is to reboot the computer (I only reboot about once a week and use hibernate during the week).
I had over 3500 of the randomly numbered files in the windows temp dir and the windows cleanup doesn't recognize these files as candidates to remove (I guess because they are application specific files). So I have to keep a Windows Explorer session open in Win Temp dir to periodically remove the files.
I did google this and found this has been going on here and there for a few years. There were various discussions about uninstalling/reinstalling Firefox and the flashplayer and then people claim it didn't work and started again after some period of time.
I also found a website that said this was caused by some protected mode the flash player is running now. They gave instructions on how to turn off the protected mode, but I've been hesitant to do this, due to some of the protections that were described and was afraid I'd be leaving myself open to viruses or other attack.
Why is the flashplayer generating these files?
Why isn't flashplayer cleaning up after iteself and forcing me to clean up thousands of files manually?
why doesn't Adobe manage this properly once and for all, considering how long it's been going on?
I would appreciate any thoughts on this issue.
Thanks.
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