Post Archive
› April 22, 2002
FavIcon
Fav Icons are a nice way to introduce a bit of branding in normally generized areas of the browser UI. A well designed icon can be a lot easier to read than a 35 character URL.
That said, default server polling for favicon.ico has been turned off in Mozilla. To get your favicon to show up, you need to use a LINK tag, like so:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
And that's probably as it should be.
Comments
1. April 22, 2002 02:44 PM
2. April 22, 2002 03:27 PM
Michael Facius Posted…
Which is a bad thing. This forced <link/> clutters up code in the same way the IE <meta/> Tag for switching off the image toolbar does.
In moz .9.7, the favicon behavior was the same as in IE. Only in 9.8 the developers decided to change it. Recalling that Microsoft “invented” favicon, I find the decision a little small minded. I certainly won’t submit to this.
NB: Setting the user preference user_pref(“browser.chrome.favicons”,true); will reactivate the original behavior.
3. April 22, 2002 03:32 PM
Michael Facius Posted…
I forgot the implications of permitted html. With escaped markup, this is what I wrote:
- This forced <link/>
- the IE <meta/> Tag
Sorry.
Editors Note: no prob, fixed in original comment
4. April 22, 2002 03:33 PM
AndyEd Posted…
The issue is one of site traffic. There was a significant uproar way back when IE started hitting every site with requests for some file called favicon.ico It was a nice way to drum up adoption of the feature, but not a very good move for the general health of the web as a network. It makes a lot more sense, imho, for the browser to only grab a site icon if it’s been told it’s there. And, as Nate points out, no more obscure authoring programs required as you can use .PNG.5. April 22, 2002 04:15 PM
Michael Facius Posted…
The additional support for png without doubt makes sense. As far as I understand the mechanism of favicon (cf. article on msdn), site traffic is not an issue. Only when you “add to favorites” a given site will the server be searched for favicon.ico, and only one single time because afterwards the icon is cached. Not really heavy load.
What makes me stand against the “link” solution (or mentioned “meta”) is that browser vendors try to force developers into a specific behavior (and markup garbage) only to support their software. Maybe I’m overrating the issue, but since the “browser wars” I’ve become a little sensitive.
6. April 22, 2002 04:30 PM
Nate Posted…
This page on netmechanic points to the issue, 1 404 error for each time your site is bookmarked (assuming you don’t have a favicon). If you read the article linked above you’ll see that it’s Netmechanic’s opinion that this isn’t really a problem. I’m not sure it’s that big a deal either, but it seems somewhat gratuitous that we have to supply favicon files to avoid erronious 404 error reporting. I prefer that to have an icon requires a bit more code, rather than being required to have a file sitting on my server because of an uncontrollable ping on msIe’s part. Then again, I kind of like having them anyways (and there is a webgraphics one), so perhaps I shouldn’t speak of it.7. April 22, 2002 05:31 PM
Paul Sowden Posted…
Which is a bad thing. This forced <link/> clutters up code in the same way the IE <meta/> Tag for switching off the image toolbar does.
I hardly think this is a hardship, it is comparatively sexy compared to the volume of bloated markup sprawled all over the web.
I prefer the “opt–in” mechanisms, Mozilla has it the right way. As for IE’s image thing, that is an opt–out thing, which I completely disagree with.
Nate Posted…
Interestingly enough, it seems that mozilla.org not only uses a filename other than favicon.ico, but they also use the mozilla happy png file format. It’s almost like they are going out of the way to make sure their icon doesnt show up in winIe.