What is favicon.ico ?

[Rick]

I was rummaging through web logs, and I noticed that quite a few browsers seem to ask, for no obvious reason, for a file called favicon.ico. I presume it's some sort of icon file, but can anyone tell me:

* what it's for.
* what type of image format it should be in.
* what size it should be.

I notice it always seems to be requested from the root directory of a (virtual) host, so the common one at the moment is http://gal.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/favicon.ico (which doesn't exist).

[Ian]

good old google

http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/favicon.html

it is the icon that appears instead of the generic document one before the URL on the taskbar.

Perhaps if we had one, the messages would disappear... it has to be 16x16.

Ian

[Rick]

Ah. "and it works only in Explorer 5 and above" Should have realised it'd be one of those Microsoft "standards". The rest of us get lumbered with the fall-out....

[Rick]

For a 16x16 icon, they seem to be somewhat seriously overblown, size-wise. Even at 32-bits per pixel a 16x16 icon really shouldn't work out at more than 1024 bytes of raw data. 16x16 using only 16 colours should be only 128 bytes. The ones from Google and The Register are 1406 bytes. The one from Celestrak is 2238 bytes. Oh, and Microsoft.com doesn't appear to have one. Typical! ;>

[Rick]

Ah.... Some tricks for unix types like me:
http://www.mavetju.org/unix/favicon.php

http://www.winterdrache.de/freeware/png2ico/favicon.html



[ This Message was edited by: Rick on 2003-07-10 13:10 ]

[Ian]

actually reading the article, it appears it absolutely has to be 16x16 unless you want to use a larger one.

Answers on a postcard to the usual address...

[Rick]

That'd be Bill, Redmond WA, USA. Yes?

Don't forget, to play by the same spirit you need to stick your postcard to a house-brick and send it un-stamped....

[Ian]

ouch! I hope I never upset you

[Rick]

Bill in Redmond can afford it....

[Rick]

Ah... Trust the logic for finding favicon.ico files to be brain-dead...

There I was, assuming it would do something logical and well-mannered, like looking for favicon.ico in the same directory as the index.html file...

But no. It goes to the root directory for the site first. Then it seems it just gives up. :/

So http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/oas/favicon.ico might as well not be there, as the only place it bothers looking is http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/favicon.ico

Oh well...