Favicons, browsers and Northern Ireland News

[matgb]

OK, this is weird. Earlier today, nhw linked to a news story about a lecture he was giving. The article was at Northern Ireland News. Nothing odd about any of that of course, it's the site itself that's odd. Why? The favicon. Here's a screenshot:



From the left: Gmail, my LJ friends page, NI news, a MySpace blog, a TypePad blog, Harry's Place and an LJ entry^[1]. All in my nicely themed up Firefox. Now, note the favicon used for NI News. Yup, it's the Internet Explorer logo. Now, favicons are fairly new, IE itself only began supporting them properly with IE7. They require specific coding into a site, and normally you have to create a specific ICO file. So why have the web developers of NI news specifically programmed in the IE logo for their favicon? How daft is that?

Until recently, most people that would have seen it would have been non-IE users. And for those of you using IE, you might not quite understand how, well, insulting it is to see that damned logo in, quite frankly, better software. Weird. *goes to find an email address on their site*

ETA: The site has now been updated and the favicon removed, I've been asked not to give out the explanation I was given.

^[1] Yes, I did specifically choose a nice spread of sites using favicons well, just to make the point, and correct, I rarely read Harry's Place, they just happen to have a good favicon and an article that caught my attention by David T.

Comments

[matgb]

Using their contact box (which is ugly):

I was linked to your site by a friend mentioned in a news article on it, and was surprised to find that your CMS has specifically programmed into it the Microsoft Internet Explorer logo as a favicon.

As this is the (proprietary) logo for one specific web browser, I believe that you are a) breaching microsoft's copyright and b) alienating elements of your potential userbase.

I have written up further analysis with better explanatory links on my personal blog:
http://matgb.livejournal.com/179215.html

Wonder if I'll get a response.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

* waits with bated breath *

[js84.livejournal.com]

There used to be an old issue that made Firefox inadvertently display the old Netscape favicon (http://xnet.ex.ac.uk/forums/index.php/topic,14486.0.html) under some sites, but I checked it too and it's the same for me.

Those not living in Northern Ireland might not understand how insulting it might be to have an icon of a clover or a leprechaun there instead - at any rate a lot less than the IE logo.

[matgb]

They'd be better off with no favicon at all instead of a weird one, not all sites use them, and it doesn't hurt them really, it just makes the sites that do a little bit better.

I also, naturally, tested with IE as well. Didn't know about that bug though, weird. Do like the Xnet favicon though, always did; haven't been back to the place for ages though...

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

Y'mean the red and blue X or the light blue X?

I actually deleted my bookmarks for Xnet. Can't be bothered with it anymore.

[matgb]

Both, actually, I forget which I prefer, but they were clear, identifiable and useful, which is what a favicon needs to be.

But yeah, I only ever go there now if someone links, partially as all the people I wanted to keep in contact with from there are on LJ, partially because it's been more years since I graduated than it was that I was there.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

I use Safari, and I got the same thing. That's annoying.

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

IE7 only started supporting favicons with IE7? By that you mean "spread their use beyond bookmarks to places like tabs, which didn't actually previously exist in IE"? Favicon is an IE innovation that the rest of the world just improved on (greatly).

That said, I am somewhat confused. IE at first used a "just have it at /favicon.ico and we'll find it" method, which was crap because it meant a server hit for every IE user regardless of whether there was a /favicon.ico there. But if you look at the source of 4NI, there is no reference to favicon.ico - it seems to be the mere presence of the file in the expected place that Fx is finding. Which given that that's supposed to be Bad and Wrong, seems odd.

[matgb]

You're right; I thought I'd missed it in the source code, but rechecking it, it's not mentioned at all; weird.

And you're right about favicons starting with IE, I'd already amended the posta little to insert the word 'properly', because I really can't see the point of them beyond tabs, they increase UI. Although they do that for bookmarks as well, having them in the address bar just seems pointless to me. I had thought they were an Opera/Fx thing until I did some research for this post TBH, never noticed them in IE, but in Fx they're essential, so much so I taught myself how to set them up.

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

I *think* I'm right in saying that if you had a Bookmarks Toolbar type thing in IE6ish, the icons would help you distinguish between links and thus need less label text and in turn let you fit more on. But I may be wrong and I may have only started doing that when I started using Fx.

Address bar favicons are fairly pointless; it seems unlikely that a favicon would say something that the URL itself did not convey.

I'm pleased to see that IE7 supports PNG favicons, and I will probably swoop through all sites with nice new icons.

[matgb]

Ooh, PNG files are something I actually use for other things as well, that's cool.

Also? You and imc so outclass my knowledge of server side stuff that I can use this thread to prove my non-ITness to certain other people. This is cool. Thx for the input so far, as I wouldn't know half of this stuff.

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

Cursory further research reveals that this stupid method is indeed still supported in modern browsers.

http://www.informationgift.com/ud/faviconic/

[matgb]

And from the wording (v8+ no longer require link. for example) it appears that this is being encouraged. That's just dim, especially for sites (like one of mine) that have multiple sub domains but use the same link text for all of them and have common images shared on the main site. Plus clutter in my main root directories is bad enough already.

Ah well, ours not to reason why. Although I may harass the W3C about it at some point if I get into a silly mood.

Now why has this site installed the ie logo into the root as a favicon file? That's just too weird.

[imc.livejournal.com]

Their web server appears to be Microsoft IIS 6.0. This is pure speculation on my part, but I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to install that icon at /favicon.ico as part of the web server package.

I believe that a similar issue existed with Netscape Enterprise Server, which is why a lot of sites (used to) put that "N" icon in the location bar without necessarily realising they were doing it.

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it. Now I come to think of it, Sun do this too.

[matgb]

Ah, see, all this server side stuff is beyond me; servers are something I pay for, and get given passwords to, that's about the extent of my knowledge.

But still, that's a weird branding thing to do, especially using the browser logo not a specific product logo. Ah well, ours not to reason why...

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

Well, the web server's running Microsoft, so my best guess is that the particular default install of IIS had a favicon.ico in the root that the NI people didn't delete.

I agree with most of what you're saying except I'd say harassing Fx is probably more use than W3C - the W3C already know it's bad and wrong.

There is a *chance* that this favicon detection only happens because the site
a) has a Transitional doctype
b) has in the headers "Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET"

If Fx is bright enough to only look for .ico files under those circumstances, I'll be a lot happier as it means that those of us with Strict and/or LAMP based websites don't have to worry.

[emurphy42.livejournal.com]

Seems to be gone now.

[matgb]

Yeah, I got a reply back from their IT guy, he removed it.

[shaysdays.livejournal.com]

Well dahling, I know you from MQ of course, but finally sat around and read a bit of your blog when I should be sleeping. Added you to the flist, hope you don't mind.

[matgb]

Mind? More crazy funny people is always good. Especially pirate kitten people.

(and, um, may have come close to adding you a few times anyway so there y'go)