If you use Firefox and you save bookmarks, then you have probably noticed that some bookmarks display an icon next to them. These are known as a favicons.

These favicons can help you visually identify a bookmark, but what happens when the wrong favicon is displayed for a particular bookmark? First off, I don't know how this happens, but I have seen it several times. Previously, the only way I knew to fix this was to delete the bookmark and add it again. This is sort of a pain since you have to take the time to put the new bookmark back in the same place. Here is another way.

• Close all sessions of FireFox
• Find a file called bookmarks.html in your Firefox profile. This is generally located here: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profilename>\
• Copy this file (just in case....)
• Open bookmarks.html using your favorite HTML editor, or Notepad.
• Search for the bookmark that you want to edit.
• You will see some HTML code like this:

  <A HREF="http://www.google.com
      ADD_DATE="1155432765"
      LAST_VISIT="1651389765"
      LAST_CHARSET="UTF-8"
      ID="rdf:##Mj4I$"
      ICON="data:image/x-icon;base64,AAA">
      Google
      </a>

  ...except that the data in quotes after the ICON label will be much longer.
  
• Just delete the entire ICON="" section, including the contents of this section.
  
• Save the bookmarks.html file and close it.
  
• Restart Firefox and pick your bookmark, the correct icon should now appear.

Labels: Other software

---

Comment from:  Douglas
Date: August 6, 2007 at 3:15:00 PM CDT  

Thanks for this tip. I actually just turned my favicons off the other day with a userchrome hack. I miss them, but the wrong icons were really annoying (and it was only one or two that were wrong).
I am assuming that you delete the entire line so that it has to refresh the entry, is that correct?

---

Comment from:  Mxyzptlk
Date: February 25, 2008 at 9:05:00 AM CST  

Just what I needed, very easy to do. Thanks a lot!

Post a comment