# Why dosnt the Straight dope have a fav icon? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 23, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830 "2006-06-23T05:42:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fishquail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/90db22/32.png) [@fishquail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishquail)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/1 "2006-06-23T05:42:13Z")
Why dosnt the Straight dope have a Fav Icon? I find it annoying when some websites dont bother to put one up. If they have one, all you got to do is look for a familar picture, saving time. Every major website should have one. Who do I talk to about this? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/2 "2006-06-23T05:54:29Z")
In fact, a generic favicon.ico was installed with VB, but because these boards aren’t installed at document root, it doesn’t show up. It’s here: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/favicon.ico](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/favicon.ico) ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/3 "2006-06-23T06:03:55Z")
And if you look at the bottom of the page, it says: Comments regarding this website to: [webmaster@straightdope.com](mailto:webmaster@straightdope.com) It would probably be a more suitable topic for ATMB, also. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/4 "2006-06-23T12:32:47Z")
We Do! The Invisible Pink Unicorn! ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/5 "2006-06-23T13:34:05Z")
> [@fishquail](#): > > If they have one, all you got to do is look for a familar picture, saving time. Explain. I’ve never found any sort of usefulness in a favicon whatsoever and always considered it a rather silly little feature. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/6 "2006-06-23T15:26:50Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > Explain. I’ve never found any sort of usefulness in a favicon whatsoever and always considered it a rather silly little feature. Agreed. They never seem to last more than about two weeks for me anyway. Every so often, the sleeping beast within Windows stirs and refreshes the desktop icons, at which point, any favicons I may have had on the desktop vanish. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/7 "2006-06-23T15:58:32Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > Explain. I’ve never found any sort of usefulness in a favicon whatsoever and always considered it a rather silly little feature. If you’ve got a bunch of tabs open in your browser, or a bunch of browser windows open, they provide some benefit by allowing you to spot the tab or window you want to switch to more readily than by reading the title texts. I agree that it’s not a huge benefit, and most people see it as simply decorative, but it also doesn’t take a huge amount of work for the site to provide. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/8 "2006-06-23T16:01:22Z")
And I’m not lobbying for SD to have one, like the OP. It might be nice, if someone can think of one they’d like to use, but it’s no big deal if they don’t have one. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/9 "2006-06-23T16:06:20Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > If you’ve got a bunch of tabs open in your browser, or a bunch of browser windows open, they provide some benefit by allowing you to spot the tab or window you want to switch to more readily than by reading the title texts. I agree that it’s not a huge benefit, and most people see it as simply decorative, but it also doesn’t take a huge amount of work for the site to provide. Tabs, dude. It’s nice to have it clear at a glance what tab is from where. I’m always wishing this place had a favicon. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/10 "2006-06-23T16:20:31Z")
Also on the personal toolbar for firefox. I shrink the bookmark text down to a few letters so that I can cram more entries on the toolbar. If I wanted to rely exclusively on the favicon, I could remove the text entirely and gain that much more space on the toolbar. I haven’t gone that far yet, and it would require that firefox fix their blasted favicon display bug - sites that don’t have one wind up displaying the favicon for some other random site (my SDMB bookmark on the toolbar is currently displaying the google favicon). It seems that the firefox developers assign that one a very low priority, and I get the impression that they may never fix it. ---
**Author:** ![MrSquishy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/11 "2006-06-23T18:42:32Z")
Other than tabbed browsing, another reason for a favicon is that a large number of “non-computer” people (that I know, anyway) don’t organize their bookmarks in any way. They just click “Add to favourites…”, “OK”, and they’re done. They end up with a hugely long single list of bookmarks, and have to scroll through the whole thing to find what they’re looking for. A pet peeve of mine. I’m not saying the best solution to this problem is a favicon, but I can see how it would help these folks. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2006, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dosnt-the-straight-dope-have-a-fav-icon/361830/12 "2006-06-24T07:34:04Z")
Since this has been addressed recently in ATMB, I’m closing this. Please continue discussion in that thread: > **[SDMB Favicon Contest?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=372851)** > > Is anybody interested in a contest to select a favicon for the SDMB links in your browser favorites? If we generated some good ones, maybe TPTB would adopt it as the official favicon for the forums. There are several favicon editors linked from the... - **xash** General Questions Moderator