gHacks technology news » favicons http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:24:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 How To Remove Favicons In Firefox Bookmarks http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/11/how-to-remove-favicons-in-firefox-bookmarks/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/11/how-to-remove-favicons-in-firefox-bookmarks/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 08:43:08 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/11/how-to-remove-favicons-in-firefox-bookmarks/ firefoxFavicons 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

firefox bookmark favicons

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.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/11/how-to-remove-favicons-in-firefox-bookmarks/feed/ 3 Add Favicons To Websites Without One http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/18/add-favicons-to-websites-without-one/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/18/add-favicons-to-websites-without-one/#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:01:00 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5408 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.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/18/add-favicons-to-websites-without-one/feed/ 1 Create your own favicon with ease http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/13/create-your-own-favicon-with-ease/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/13/create-your-own-favicon-with-ease/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 17:10:29 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/13/create-your-own-favicon-with-ease/ 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.

eye faviconleave faviconskull favicontux favicon

Read More:

Favicon.cc

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