Monday, October 31, 2005 11:07 AM
Some days ago I posted about the Pandora music service.
The service is free for the first 10h of music, beyond that you pay $36 for a full year.
Let me clearly point out that I consider that a more than reasonable price for the service and I don't encourage you to disable the 10h limit.
After my 10h passed I was convinced about their service. Before finally signing up I was keen on showing the service to some of my friends.
Therefore I decided to clear my cache and delete all cookies so that I could use the service again. Unfortunately that didn't do the trick. I still could not access the service again. Changing my ip (which is dynamic) didn't help either.
Doing some quick research brought up some useful information about Local Shared Objects in Flash. Those objects do serve as "Flash Cookies". They provide a method how flash can store information on a user's computer.
A good introduction to those objects can be found here.
Pandora is using these Flash Cookies to keep track about your 10h limit. The cookies are stored at C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player. They are named v2_Machine.sol and v2_PerfComp.sol.
You can open up those files with any HexEditor. They don't contain much information. Mainly an authtoken which is transmitted to the Pandora service so they can query their database for your stations.
Deleting those two files gives you back another 10h testing periode. Logically your old stations are gone and the system is starting to learn you preferences about music again.
Update: Pandora is offering a free ad-supported version now.