I can only get "favicons" to appear occasionally and when they do
appear, I drag them down to my taskbar for easy identification to
launch later (all 9 of them) only to default back to all  "e"  by
themselves at various times, then I can't tell which site is which
unless I roll the pointer over them. I'm sure the answer will be
helpful to many people who save favorites to the taskbar. I never
saw favicons until I started using XP and I even uninstalled my
anti-virus to see if that would help. I also tried the other answer
posted about dragging the favicon to the end of the URL in the address
bar, which didn't work for me. I will really, really appreciate the
answer to this more than you can imagine.

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Request for Question Clarification by sgtcory-ga on 30 May 2006 11:49 PDT

Hello logicchoice,

If I understand the question correctly, the best way to ensure that
the favicons you want to view will always be seen on your desktop is
to save the file locally, and then assign that icon file to the link.

Here is how to do this :

1) Look at the source code of the site you want to bookmark, and find
the name / path of the favicon you want to save. I'll use
SitePoint.com as an example.

2) I go to www.sitepoint.com , right click on the page, and then click
on 'View Source'. The icon file pointer will normally be in the head
tags. In this case it is :

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" />

3) Now I simply point my browser to
http://www.sitepoint.com/favicon.ico, and then right click on the icon
to save it to my computer in a location I know I will not delete. You
can even create a new folder called 'myfavicons' (or whatever you
like) to make it easy to remember.

4) Then assuming we have already dragged this site to my taskbar, I
would right click on the shortcut link, and then click properties.

5) Once you click on properties, you should see a button that states
'Change Icon'. Click that button and locate the .ico file you just
saved. From now on you should see the icon file every time you go to
access the link.

It may seem like a lengthy process, but it ensures you will always
have a solid path to the icon file. Many times the icon file linked to
gets moved , or gets a temporary file link which can easily be
deleted.

Not every site uses a favicon , so that may be the reason you only see
them once in a while.

Let me know if I am headed in the right direction , or if your
question meant to address something different. I'd be happy to help -

SgtCory

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Clarification of Question by logicchoice-ga on 11 Jun 2006 10:07 PDT

SgtCory,
I am very sorry for not replying sooner, I thought I read that I would
receive an email if anyone responded to my question
You?re awesome! I?m 90% there as far as understanding favicons. It is
a long process but it?s easy. I?ve added ?/favicon.ico? after the .com
then drag (favicon) to taskbar, right click, send to ?my documents?
then browse back to ?my documents? and change the explorer icon to a
favicon via ?properties? as you said to. I have to repeat the steps
for sites in my ?favorites? and then again for  ?links? but it?s worth
the time as it?s such a time saver to see all those different favicons
to identify websites and they dress up the menus too. I did expand my
cache and then some favicons would start to appear again but
intermittently, I?d have to move around in the site, then maybe a
favicon would appear with the exception of my saved eBay ?favorites?
which upon opening the folders I got a ?domino? effect of all the blue
?e? icons changing to the eBay logo favicons. The favicon I can?t find
under ?view source? to save is eBay?s so finally (thanks to you!) I
have all these nice favicons saved in my taskbar and one ugly
(compared to the colorful eBay logo favicon) blue explorer ?e?. I even
used ?word? to search for the key words with no luck. Please tell me
how and where to find eBay?s favicon. Maybe I?m too sensitive but your
next to the last paragraph really hurt my feelings.

Hello logicchoice,

Strangely enough, I could not find the Ebay .ico reference in their
source code. I did find one for you to use though :

Ebay .ico File
http://www.uncoolcentral.com/images/favicons/ebay.ico

"Maybe I?m too sensitive but your next to the last paragraph really
hurt my feelings..."

I'm a big fan of favicons as well ;-) It makes it much easier to get
work done online because my brain can relate to an image or brand
faster than it can a line of text.

To assist with this answer I used first hand experience, and used
Google to find the Ebay ico file :

ebay.ico
://www.google.com/search?q=ebay.ico

Should you need any clarification I'll do the best I can to assist.
Thanks for the question!

SgtCory

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Clarification of Answer by sgtcory-ga on 16 Jun 2006 19:21 PDT

Thank you for the rating and the tip!

"I would think they would want it to show up everytime in the address
bar so if you are feeling up explaining that one, I would be
fascinated..."

The problem we as end users are experiencing is a client side issue.
(The client being browers such as Internet Explorer, Netscape,
FireFox, etc..., and how they interact with the operating system.) So,
while there is a standard in place for displaying a favicon for a
website, the problem lies with how the clients store, display, further
manipulate files, and how they communicate this with the operating
system.

In summary, it's not a website issue, rather an issue with operating
systems distinguishing that a favicon favorite should be a permanent
file until the requesting client and user no longer want it.

I hope that clarifies the issue a bit. As a multi-site owner and
server admin, this is one of those 'issues' that I would like to see a
solid standard for because there are many people like you and I that
love their favicons ;-)

Thanks,
SgtCory

Hi There SgtCory, 
    Great answers! The ouch was that suggesting that I may be seeing
things (favicons) that don't exist when I had in fact just seen them.
Which is still curious to me because even tho I have saved an address
with a favicon when I click on it, it may or may not show up with the
favicon in the address bar and also the domino effect that happens
when opening a folder of having all the "e's" change to favicons only
later change back in a day or two. The answer to that is probably
complicated and not really important to me but seeing how websites
went to the trouble and expense for a favicon, I would think they
would want it to show up everytime in the address bar so if you are
feeling up explaining that one, I would be fascinated.
Brian

Just FYI, the favicons are stored in the internet cache by default, so
they will disappear when you clear the cache or when the cache size
limit is exceeded and files are purged. I hadn't noticed you could
change the icon in IE so thanks for the tip - doesn't look like
Firefox allows that.