A favicon (short for favorite icon), also known as a shortcut icon, website icon, tab icon, URL icon, or bookmark icon, is a file containing one or more small, associated with a particular. A web designer can create such an icon and upload it to a website (or web page) by several means, and graphical will then make use of it. Browsers that provide favicon support typically display a page's favicon in the browser's (sometimes in the history as well) and next to the page's name in a list of. Browsers that support a typically show a page's favicon next to the page's title on the tab, and use the favicon as a. Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • History [ ] In March 1999, released, which supported favicons for the first time. Originally, the favicon was a called favicon.ico placed in the of a website. It was used in 's favorites (bookmarks) and next to the URL in the address bar if the page was bookmarked.

A side effect was that the number of visitors who had bookmarked the page could be estimated by the requests of the favicon. This side effect no longer works, as all modern browsers load the favicon file to display in their web address bar, regardless of whether the site is bookmarked. Standardization [ ] The favicon was standardized by the (W3C) in the 4.01 recommendation, released in December 1999, and later in the 1.0 recommendation, released in January 2000. The standard implementation uses a with a in the section of the document to specify the file format and file name and location. Unlike in the prior scheme, the file can be in any Web site and have any image file format. In 2003, the format was registered by a third party with the (IANA) under the image/vnd.microsoft.icon. However, when using the.ico format to display as images (e.g.

Not as favicon), Internet Explorer cannot display files served with this standardized MIME type. A for Internet Explorer is to associate.ico with the non-standard image/x-icon MIME type in Web servers.

Established an IANA link relation registry, and rel='icon' was registered in 2010 based on the specification. The popular theoretically identifies two relations, ' shortcut' and ' icon', but ' shortcut' is not registered and is redundant.

In 2011 the specified that for historical reasons ' shortcut' is allowed immediately before ' icon'; however, ' shortcut' does not have a meaning in this context. Legacy [ ] Internet Explorer 5–10 supports only the. And Internet Explorer versions 5 and display the favicon only when the page is bookmarked, and not simply when the pages are visited as in later browsers. Browser implementation [ ] The following table illustrates major web browsers supporting different features.

You’ll notice that the Mac automatically uses a default “@ HTTP” icon. It will use this icon for ALL web/url shortcuts you want to make making it less obvious and less distinguishable when you have a few on your desktop.

The version numbers indicate the starting version of a supported feature. File format support [ ] The following table illustrates the support for the favicon. Browser Yes Yes Yes No Unknown Unknown Unknown 1.0 1.0 1.0 Yes Yes 3.0 41.0 Yes Yes 4.0 No 4.0 No No 5.0 11.0 11.0 No No No No 7.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.5 44.0 Yes 4.0 4.0 No 4.0 No No Additionally, such icon files can be 16×16, 32×32, 48×48, or 64×64 in size, and 8-bit, 24-bit, or 32-bit in. The article explains the details for icons with more than 256 colors on various platforms. Use of favicon [ ] This table illustrates the different areas of the browser where favicons can be displayed.

Browser Address bar Address bar drop down list Links bar Bookmarks Tabs Drag to desktop Edge No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Firefox 1.0–12.0: Yes > v13: No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Google Chrome No No Yes Yes 1.0 No Internet Explorer 7.0 No 5.0 5.0 7.0 5.0 Opera 7.0–12.17: Yes > v14: No No 7.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 Safari Yes Yes No Yes No No. • Firefox only accepts favicon.ico in the website's root without a tag if the setting browser.chrome.favicons is set to true in about:config.

The default value is true. If set to false, these favicons are ignored.

• Opera loads /favicon.ico only if Multimedia/Always load favicon option in opera:config is set to 1. See for more details. If links for both PNG and ICO favicons are present, PNG-favicon-compatible browsers select which format and size to use as follows. Firefox and Safari will use the favicon that comes last. Chrome for Mac will use whichever favicon is ICO formatted, otherwise the 32×32 favicon. Chrome for Windows will use the favicon that comes first if it is 16×16, otherwise the ICO. Paint for the mac.

If none of the aforementioned options are available, both Chromes will use whichever favicon comes first, exactly the opposite of Firefox and Safari. Indeed, Chrome for Mac will ignore the 16×16 favicon and use the 32×32 version, only to scale it back down to 16×16 on non-retina devices. Opera will choose from any of the available icons completely at random. Only doesn’t fetch favicon.ico files in the website’s root by default. Device support [ ]. This section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.