Custom icons for websites

I use the program "FavOrg" that saves my Favicons. I have about 60 favorites that display a Favicon.

I noticed recently that now only a few of those same web sites display a favicon? Windows BBS is one of the sites that still display a favicon.

Wonder what happen to the others?

 

arkie--Here is the way to set up Favicons permanently. I wrote it some time ago and was told that FavOrg was so much easier. You are the first to report that FavOrg does not keep the icons????
I guess you know that favicons are stored in Temporary Internet Files, which is your cache. So everytime you cleane out your cache (like Tools|Internet Options|Delete Files or My Computer|right click C:\|click Disk Cleanup) you were deleting your favicons with the bath water. So maybe the following is still useful:
Favicons
You can keep/retrieve site icons with the following procedure.
Create a Favicons folder (like C:\Favicons).
Do a Find on favicon*.ico. Whatever icons you have collected since the last time you deleted your TIF will show up. Each will have the name favicon*.ico where the * is a number. In the Find window right click on an icon and left click on Rename. Give it a name related to whatever site it is the icon for. Then drag and drop (or if you have Send To set up) to move or copy the icon to that C:\Favicons folder. Repeat for each icon you want to keep.
Now right click on a Favorite in the Favorites list, click Properties, Change Icon, and in the next window type in C:\Favicons\name-of-icon.ico.
Click OK twice,click Apply and OK in the next window. Now that Favorite is permanently associated with an icon in your C:\Favicons folder and you won't lose it when you clean your cache.
If you want to go back and get all the old icons you have lost, recreate a Favorite just for the purpose of getting the icon to download again. After going through the above procedure you can delete (or substitute) the new, duplicate Favorite.

 

Welshjim:

Sorry, my post must not have been clear.

I didn't mean to say FavOrg wasn't keeping the favicon.
I have about 60 favorites that display a favicon.
The FavOrg program is working just fine.

Only a few of those web sites now display a favicon with their address.

I was wondering why the "web sites" are not showing favicons like they were before??

Thanks

 

arkie--Well, maybe I still do not understand. On my PC, WindowsBBS, for example, shows its icon (black V or square root on yellow background) in the address bar only on the home page. The individual forum/topic pages do not show the icon. Not sure it ever was any different.
Now if you want to try to "find" a favicon for a website, you can type the site's URL in the address bar followed by /favicon.ico. You won't always succeed, but it works sometimes. Of course, you know that only some sites have favicons.

 

Welshjim

Sorry, I don't mean to confuse anyone.

If you notice, I said in my first post that Windows BBS is one of the sites that still display a favicon.

My question was that I noticed that now only a few sites are showing favicons on their web site...... out of my 60 favorites that have a favicon. (6 out of 60)

I was just wondering WHY they don't show now? Or is it my browser. (I'm talking about their home pages)

Example:
This site did show a favicon... it was a "pyramid with and eye in it "... their trade mark.
http://www.visualizesoftware.com/visualzone/visualzone.htm

Thanks

 

I've noticed that most addresses listed in my address bar on IE5 tend to have the default blue E icon that is familiar to IE.

I've found a way to force the favicon to appear. Click on the icon in the address window and drag it from the window and then return and drop it back in the same place (over itself). The favicon will immediately appear and can also then be found among the Temp Internet Files for relocating to your favicons folder or whatever.

Another strange characteristic of those files, I can't turn them up with the FIND utility (searching *.ico) but once I locate them by rearranging the temp files by date and looking for the one created recently, and then moving it to my favicon folder, it can then be found with the FIND utility. Go figure!

HTH

 

Zephyr --
1)Your drag and drop idea did not work for me.
2)When you create a Favorite and see that it has a favicon attached, you most of the time can locate the favicon in TIF\Content.IE5 by doing a Find on favicon*.ico. (It usually will be named "favicon[1].ico ".) If no favicon accompanies the Favorite, you probably did not download a favicon and the the Find will not find one. As I mentioned, and what bothers arkie, is that many sites do not have favicons, or at least do not download them. That's life. (However you may be able to manually download one by putting www.sitename.com/favicon.ico in the Address line and hitting Enter. Try it on http://www.ibm.com/favicon.ico. You can then download it by File|Save As.)
3)Some favicons, like the one at visualizesoftware, do attach an icon to the Favorite, but, for some unknown reason, their favicon is named visualize.ico, so a search on favicon*.ico will come up empty.
4)And then there are other favicons which are named something totally different. The one VirtualDr used for a while was one. I cannot remember exactly, but it was something like vdr_ico.xxx (can't remember what the xxx extension was, maybe .gif).
The best way to find the favicons in categories 3 and 4 is the method you mention.

There now, I have beaten this horse to its grave.

 

I don't know if this is going to cloud the waters more but,

C:\Program Files\FavOrg\Data

is where they are stored on my win98se sp2/ie 5.5 sp2 system.
There are 392 as of right now -- i have't run the proggie in a couple days -- each has a unique name. They were not found with the find function using Favicon*.ico.
an example of naming protocol is Aries
www.windows-help.net.ico -- looks like a s on top of a s
and
www.windowsbbs.com.ico -- looks like a checkmark

I hadn't noticed that the icons were not appearing until you mentioned it, but my "known" icons are not appearing either, but if i do as mentioned , drag the url away and back the favicon is there --
strange things these black boxes do eh

 

pbyk--That is because you have installed FavOrg (referred to by arkie in his first post). It automatically saves favicons when you create a Favorite, if the site has a favicon.

 

Was going to edit my post again, to say the favourites that have a favicon, are still there, and show up when i check the favorites folder. why it is not showing the "favicon" in the address bar is beyond me.
quote

PLATFORMS:
32-bit Windows with Internet Explorer 4 or higher

DESCRIPTION:
FavOrg scans the Web sites in your Favorites list for favicons--custom icons provided by the Web site. The icons are displayed on the Favorites bar, the Favorites menu, and the Address bar. Custom icons make the Favorites list easier to scan, letting you locate a given shortcut faster. Microsoft added the custom icon feature to IE5;

 

pbyk:

Hey, that works... I didn't know that, that proves they are still there.. just don't want to be seen.



Thanks

 

Arkie, we should really be thanking ZEPHYR -- was his drag idea
thks Z

 

Right!

So the thanks goes to Zephyr.

The dragging does work!

 

I am appropriately humble since I discovered it by mistake. Perhaps it's a first and I'll get further credit when cited in a forthcoming issue of "Computers for Dummies."

Edit I hasten to point out the obvious, if the web site doesn't have a Favicon incorporated therein, no amount of dragging or flogging will produce one. You can't get a Favicon from a turnip!