5 ms·

Op suggests 5mb limit on Favicons. Assuming a 32x32 pixel display size (retina). That's 1k bytes per pixel!

by stestagg 11y ago

Synaesthesia 11y ago
You can have a long animation on your favicon
- Qwertious 11y ago
  I have to ask: Why do favicons need the ability to be animated? It's like the ability to autoplay mp3s on a webpage upon loading: There may very well be a use case for it, but there's a pretty big use-case for it NOT being possible, which is that it's pretty goddamn stupid. And since we're clearly not adhering to Unix philosophy on the web, I say that it being idiotic is a good enough reason to not allow for it.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    One thing we need to figure out: how to ban assholes instead of banning features. In general, things can be either interesting XOR safe, and we're killing off more and more interesting things[0] on the web just because some assholes will surely make use of them. [0] - like e.g. calls for rate-limiting access to phone gyroscopes, or banning it altogether, in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10914666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10914666.
    - stestagg 11y ago
      I agree with you, in principle, BUT there's always a tradeoff to be had. In this case, I don't really see it. As a typical user, I never want my favicon to be more than ~1MB. More interesting effects may be done, but can be done in javascript, for example.
    - pdkl95 11y ago
      > ban assholes Trying to enumerate badness[1] is always the wrong approach, as your list can never be complete. [1] http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/ http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d...
  - dspillett 11y ago
    > Why do favicons need the ability to be animated? As favicons are animated in the tabs of some browsers I've seen it put to good use as a relatively unobtrusive attention grabber when a tab has new information. A simple on/off is sufficient for this though, or if you want to be a bit more flashy a fade in/out, larger animations are somewhere between pointless and stupid so perhaps a size limit is in order (32Kb seems extravagant enough for me).
    - stestagg 11y ago
      Notifications aren't (afaik) animated image files, but javascript manipulation of the dom to replace a small favicon with a new small favicon, on-demand
      - dspillett 11y ago
        I've done non-animated ones myself using that method, but I've seen animated ones too - I assumed they were done by assigning an animated graphic rather than constantly updating the icon in a JS timer event until the notification is no longer relevant. Next time I see it I'll inspect the code and see what is going on.
  - viraptor 11y ago
    Why? So that this can exist: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/ http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/

Op suggests 5mb limit on Favicons. Assuming a 32x32 pixel display size (retina). That's 1k bytes per pixel!

Synaesthesia 11y ago

You can have a long animation on your favicon

Qwertious 11y ago
I have to ask: Why do favicons need the ability to be animated? It's like the ability to autoplay mp3s on a webpage upon loading: There may very well be a use case for it, but there's a pretty big use-case for it NOT being possible, which is that it's pretty goddamn stupid. And since we're clearly not adhering to Unix philosophy on the web, I say that it being idiotic is a good enough reason to not allow for it.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  One thing we need to figure out: how to ban assholes instead of banning features. In general, things can be either interesting XOR safe, and we're killing off more and more interesting things[0] on the web just because some assholes will surely make use of them. [0] - like e.g. calls for rate-limiting access to phone gyroscopes, or banning it altogether, in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10914666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10914666.
  - stestagg 11y ago
    I agree with you, in principle, BUT there's always a tradeoff to be had. In this case, I don't really see it. As a typical user, I never want my favicon to be more than ~1MB. More interesting effects may be done, but can be done in javascript, for example.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    > ban assholes Trying to enumerate badness[1] is always the wrong approach, as your list can never be complete. [1] http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/ http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d...
- dspillett 11y ago
  > Why do favicons need the ability to be animated? As favicons are animated in the tabs of some browsers I've seen it put to good use as a relatively unobtrusive attention grabber when a tab has new information. A simple on/off is sufficient for this though, or if you want to be a bit more flashy a fade in/out, larger animations are somewhere between pointless and stupid so perhaps a size limit is in order (32Kb seems extravagant enough for me).
  - stestagg 11y ago
    Notifications aren't (afaik) animated image files, but javascript manipulation of the dom to replace a small favicon with a new small favicon, on-demand
    - dspillett 11y ago
      I've done non-animated ones myself using that method, but I've seen animated ones too - I assumed they were done by assigning an animated graphic rather than constantly updating the icon in a JS timer event until the notification is no longer relevant. Next time I see it I'll inspect the code and see what is going on.
- viraptor 11y ago
  Why? So that this can exist: http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/ http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/