RANT! Internet browsers need to handle favicons better

RANT! Internet browsers need to handle favicons better

Do you even know what a favicon is? It is the little image that sits just to the left of the URL in your address bar. For this site the favicon looks like this: Angry_1185 If you can’t see it then that pretty much proves my point!

When you surf to a page that you have previously visited, the browser checks to see if anything has changed since the last time that you visited. It then downloads the new text and graphics and combines this with data in your cache and displays this to you. This technique can greatly reduce your surf time.

Unfortunately, most modern browsers (Firefox and Internet Explorer) do a pretty lousy job of checking and updating if the favicon for a site has changed. In fact, if you using an older version of IE, it may not even display a favicon. Even Firefox will occasionally display the wrong favicon for a site.

This is poor software design. Favicons are very small and would not detract from the user experience if it was checked every time.

HEY SOFTWARE DESIGNERS, FIX YOUR FAVICON IMPLEMENTATION!

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

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