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Reload All Firefox Favicons With FavIcon Reloader

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:08:22 +0000

Favicons are little icons that can be used to identify websites. These icons are for instance displayed in the tabbar, for each opened tab one, and in the bookmarks folder. Firefox adds the icons to both locations automatically. It can however happen that imported bookmarks are imported without favicons. There is no option to retrieve the icons at a later point in time. And then there is the case of sites that change their favicon. While this does not happen that often, it does happen and you’d probably want the new icon from that moment on and not the old.

That’s where the new Firefox add-on FavIcon Reloader steps in. The program offers to retrieve the favicon for all websites that are stored as bookmarks in the Firefox web browser. The extension is officially compatible up to Firefox 5, but works under Firefox 6 and higher as well if compatibility is enforced. This can be done with an add-on like the Firefox Add-on Compatibility Reporter. (see Three Methods To Force Add-On Compatibility In Firefox for three additional methods)

You access the add-on’s options with a click on Tools > Favorite Icon Reloader in the menubar.

The add-on lists all bookmarks stored in the web browser. This includes their title and the bookmark url.

All it takes to reload all favicons is to click on the load and save icons button at the bottom of the screen. The add-on populartes the icon url information. It can happen that error messages are displayed in the process, for instance when authentication is required to access a website or when a certificate requires additional privileges.

It is necessary to monitor the progress because of those error messages. A progress bar at the bottom of the screen indicates the overall progress. Once you are done, you simply close the add-on window. All favicons should have been updated by now.

Firefox users who would like to refresh all their site’s favicons can install FavIcon Reloader directly from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Favigen, Favicon Generator

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:59:35 +0000

Favicons are small icons that help identify websites. They are used as a visual representation of a website both in the web browser and at many online services. The three most prominent locations of favicons are the browser’s address bar, the tabbar and the bookmarks folder.

Many webmasters like to create custom favicons to add that custom identifier to their website. Favicons can be created in many image and icon editors, but also online.

Favigen is a straightforward favicon generator that can turn an image into a favicon.

All that it takes is to pick an image from the local hard drive first, select the dimensions of the favicon and click the submit button to make the service generate the favicon.

Favigen supports several image formats, including jpg and png, and it does not seem to have size restrictions either. Available image dimensions range are 16×16, 32×32 and 64×64.

The generated favicon is displayed directly on the page. A click on download your favicon downloads it to the local computer, from where it can be added to a website.

The site contains a short tutorial on how to add favicons to websites. A tag needs to be placed in the head section of the website.

Favigen offers an easy way to generate favicons from images. You may also want to take a look at previous articles about favicons: Create your own favicon with ease and Add Favicons To Websites Without One.

How To Remove Favicons In Firefox Bookmarks

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:43:08 +0000

Favicons are those tiny little icons that are displayed in front of every bookmark and tab in the Mozilla Firefox web browser. They can be used to identify a website next to the website title that is also always shown. There are two main reasons why someone would want to remove favicons in the Firefox web browser. The first reason is size. Bookmarks with favicons can take up to 10 times as much space on the computer hard drive than those without. While a difference between 3 Megabytes and 300 Kilobytes does not look like much it can make a difference especially in very large bookmark collections. The second concern is privacy related as new favicons are requested by the web browser from the website itself.

The following article outlines a two-step process to remove existing Firefox favicons and block new ones from being created. It is recommended to backup all files that are mentioned in this article prior to making the necessary changes.

1. Firefox settings

The first step is to change settings in the about:config dialog of the Firefox web browser. Simply enter [about:config] in the Firefox address bar and filter the list for the term [browser.chrome]. Change the following three parameters to the following values:

browser.chrome.favicons – False
browser.chrome.image_icons.max_size – 0
browser.chrome.site_icon – False

This step does not get rid of already existing bookmark favicons.

2. Removing existing favicons

Press [Ctrl Shift B], select Import and Backup from the toolbar and pick Export HTML. This will save a copy of the bookmarks as a html file to the local desktop. Open that html file in the web browser and run the following bookmarklet to remove all Firefox favicons from it.

You can drag and drop the bookmarklet to the favorites or copy and paste it into the Firefox address bar to execute it.

Save the page again by pressing [Ctrl S]. Save it under the same name. Now close the Firefox web browser. We need to remove the old bookmark files from the Firefox profile folder. Here is the location of the Firefox profile folder on various operating systems:

Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/
Mac OS: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/
Windows 98 / ME: C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\
Windows Vista / XP: %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\

Locate the active Firefox profile. Remember to backup places.sqlite. Now delete places.sqlite and all .json files in the bookmarkbackups subfolder. Restart Firefox. You will notice that all bookmarks are gone. Use [Ctrl Shift B] again to load the library. Select Import and Backup again. This time pick Import HTML and load the previously edited html file.

The bookmarks will be loaded into Firefox. You might need to arrange them again but all favicons should be gone for good.

Add Favicons To Websites Without One

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:01:00 +0000

Favicons are a great way to identify websites visually and it is even possible to display only the Favicons in some tabs with the FaviconizeTab add-on for Firefox. Favicons are not only displayed in open tabs and the location bar but also in the Bookmark’s menu. I would like to introduce two ways to add favicons to websites that do not have their own favicon and display the default boring one instead which provides no way to recognize websites by looking at the favicon.

IdentFavicon is an automatic solution that creates identifiable and recognizable favicons from identifiers like IP addresses. This add-on uses the CRC-32 code of the website as the identifier to create unique favicons for every website that does not have one. The benefit of this add-on is that the creation process is automatic. It does have a few shortcomings that will hopefully be addressed by the author of the extension.

The favicons that are generated do not seem to be saved which means that all bookmarks that did not have a favicon in first place will remain without one when browsing the bookmarks’s menu. Even sites that have been opened and bookmarked will not make use of the generated favicon in the bookmarks.

It’s more of a live favicons add-on that only propels the tab bar.

A far more sophisticated tool is the Favicon Picker add-on. This one makes it possible to change any favicon manually. It might mean more work in the beginning because the changes have to be made in the Bookmark’s properties menu but the results are better.

The picked favicon appears everywhere, in the bookmarks and in the tab bar making it easier to identify websites visually no matter where you go in Firefox. As I said earlier it is possible to change favicons, if you have liked the old Google favicon better than the new one you could change it to the old one again.

Create your own favicon with ease

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 17:10:29 +0000

Website owners should create their own favicons that are placed in that tiny space next to your url and consist normally of 16×16 pixels. They show up in the bookmarks section of your browser as well and several extension for Firefox let you replace the text of the tabs with just the favicon of the websites.

I’m using an online favicon generator which offers all the functionality that one needs. You see a blank 16×16 image that you can fill with colors to create your favicon. That can be saved to your computer and added to your website. Another option would be to use one of the many stored favicons that are all released under Creative Commons.

I got the Mona Lisa favicon from that website. I think it is really awesome what some users can do with just 16×16 pixels. Here is a short selection of popular favicons from the site.

Read More:

Favicon.cc