The complexity of downloading favicons

#1

Post by simplecto » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

The complexity of downloading favicons
simplecto.com

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#2

Post by simplecto » Wed, Feb 12, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

Downloading that little icon you see in you browser tabs should be a simple exercise. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than I thought. Be vigilant that you are not shaving a Yak. This is my story...

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#3

Post by blakesterz » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

16: Sometimes it is an animated gif.

That's so funny, I've never seen one moving. Do browsers just convert the first frame into a static icon on the fly when they're downloaded or have I just never noticed one moving?

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#4

Post by swazzy » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

Chromium favicon service for comparison: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/tree/master/components/...

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#5

Post by Santosh83 » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

swazzy wrote: post #4

Chromium favicon service for comparison: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/tree/master/components/...

So much code for what ideally ought to be a simple task!

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#6

Post by Svip » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #3

16: Sometimes it is an animated gif. That's so funny, I've never seen one moving. Do browsers just convert the first frame into a static icon on the fly when they're downloaded or have I just never noticed one moving?

I've seen some moving favicons. Even JavaScript that could animate depending on what you did on the site.

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#7

Post by discreditable » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #3

16: Sometimes it is an animated gif. That's so funny, I've never seen one moving. Do browsers just convert the first frame into a static icon on the fly when they're downloaded or have I just never noticed one moving?

You can use an animated png too! A fun edge I found back in the day was apng allows you to have a static frame for viewers that don't understand apngs. Firefox understood apng, but if you bookmarked the page it would show the first frame of the animation rather than the static frame. The bug I opened for that is now 10 years old. :)

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#8

Post by tsukurimashou » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

I remember having similar issues a few years ago, I think I ended up using a google service to capture favicons (can't seem to find it anymore)

EDIT: Found it! https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=

(simply add a domain name after '=' and it will return the website favicon)

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#9

Post by warpech » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

17: sometimes there are multiple sizes, according to the spec (https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#rel-icon)

18: sometimes favicons are not square

19: sometimes favicons have transparent pixels (GIF) or an alpha channel (PNG)

Re: The complexity of downloading favicons

#10

Post by simplecto » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

warpech wrote: post #9

17: sometimes there are multiple sizes, according to the spec ( https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#rel-icon ) 18: sometimes favicons are not square 19: sometimes favicons have transparent pixels (GIF) or an alpha channel (PNG)

Good ones! I forgot about the transparent pixels.

May I add those with credit to you?