Where Do "Favorites" Icons Go?

This is really a General Question, but it is so trivial that I prefer to post it here, either to die of neglect or to be moved by a kindly administrator.

If you use Internet Explorer, you can save URLS to a “Favorites” list. Netscape calls these “bookmarks.” Often, when you save an URL, it appears in the list with a cute little icon next to it. If the URL doesn’t have its own individual icon, or logo, it displays with the generic Microsoft web page “E” icon. OK, fine.

But over the years, over various upgrades to IE, I notice that these distinctive unique icons always disappear after a few sessions, to be replaced with the generic “E” icon. So, for example, the little red “M” logo that appeared when I first saved the “Mapquest” URL reverts to the generic “E” logo. Once the unique logo vanishes, it never returns.

Why? Where do the cute little individualized logos/icons go, and why can’t they stay put? I’d really love to know, utterly trivial as this question may be. Not that I have to defend my curiosity in this of all threads, but I find that what most intrigues (or infuriates) non-technical PC users is when a machine acts capricious, or quirky. That is, some programmer(s) go to the trouble of creating the stupid little icons to begin with-- they aren’t hallucinations, I’m pretty sure. And the operating system recognizes the icons, and displays them for a while. But then they just… disappear. Weird, no? Can someone enlighten me on this most trivial of mysteries? Every time it happens I wonder about it.

That is a damn good question! I’ve always wondered the same thing myself so I hope it gets answered.

I don’t know why IE loses them (let me put it more correctly - I don’t know why the designers of IE set it up so that emptying your cache kills the icons for your Favorites), but here’s a nice little free utility program that will preserve them. The article references IE 5, but I’m using it in IE 6, and it works fine.

They’re not on your computer, they’re on the website server In the root directory, a file called “favicon.ico”. When you visit the site, your browser simply looks for the file, and displays it if it’s there.

On yor side, I believe that probably gets stored in your regular cache, until you clean it up (Delete temporary/internet files) -same way your recently visited URLs does.

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