10 ms·

Don't allow animated favicons (2001)

119 points by graderjs 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
samwillis 5y ago
Safari unfortunately goes too far the other way, it very aggressively caches the favicon so it can't be easily updated for things like unread counts. Gmail has a useful feature you can turn where it shows you unread email count in the favicon, great for pined tabs. It's completely useless in Safari, just gets stuck for days at a time. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/339350/safari-12-favicon-in-gmail-tab-shows-incorrect-e-mail-count https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/339350/safari-12-f...
- capitainenemo 5y ago
  That could be a tracking protection feature in Safari? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26051370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26051370 The part where the author files a bug to get caching "fixed" in Firefox is also interesting. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1618257 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1618257 Edit... Sorry. Actually, I forgot how the abuse worked, it relies on persistent caching. So Firefox doesn't cache, preventing bookmark tracking. Safari aggressively caches, so would. Any amount of caching would be a problem. Hm... unless Safari never checks for updates to the Favicon at all. That would defeat the exploit as well. So very aggressive caching with no check for updates, also good? Ok. I stand by my original guess :)
  - samwillis 5y ago
    If it's to prevent tracking I'm all for it, but I would love them to then provide an API to enable favicon overlays for badges/notifications (in a tracking abuse free way). Maybe, just maybe, with the news they are finally implementing Web Push Notifications and the suggestion it's the first step towards supporting PWAs, they might create a icon badge api for both the favicon but also PWA icons.
  - SilasX 5y ago
    >That could be a tracking protection feature in Safari? Heh, that feels like the Web in a nutshell: Devs: "Hey, wouldn't it be convenient if we cached--" Advertisers: "Aha! Another means to track people!"
  - soperj 5y ago
    Classic "that's not a bug that's a feature"
- TrueGeek 5y ago
  omg, thank you. I've always wondered why my work email count was wonky.
- shazron 5y ago
  Quoting Apple engineer Brady Eidson: "We (Apple) intentionally do not want the ability to script favicons." source 1: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95979 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95979 source 2: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75877#c1 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75877#c1
  - samwillis 5y ago
    Thank you, I went looking for the bug report but couldn't find it. 2012 is a long time ago in the time of the web, hopefully opinions have changed. I think back then Safari didn't have the ability to show favicons in the bookmark toolbar where this is useful, it does now.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    This is part of apples model that the web is for static reference material, and anything more complex should be an app in the apple ecosystem. Apple goes to great lengths to make sure webapps can't be too useful for the user.
    - nefitty 5y ago
      Sound is weird on iOS web. Also, they basically unilaterally decided to say "nah, we're good" to web Bluetooth. I think that could have opened up a lot of awesome stuff. As it stands, getting that to work is possible but the steps to get there are multiplied ten-fold.
      - gbear605 5y ago
        Thank god that Apple never implemented web Bluetooth. One more thing that I don’t have to worry about my web browser mucking with. Please keep the browser out of my peripherals.
        seanw444 5y ago
        Seriously. Why does everything have to be a web API.
- Tempest1981 5y ago
  Isn't caching a different issue than playing the animation? The Mozilla issue was (initially) focused on stopping ongoing distracting animations.
- tjoff 5y ago
  Or just use a native application instead of butchering the web to do a poor job of it.
kayodelycaon 5y ago
I'm sure there are plenty of bugs like this in other browser but yeesh... Unfixed for 20 years because it was an implementation bug no one in authority was willing to fix. No other browser even supports it! Ugh.
- thrdbndndn 5y ago
  There are plenty old bugs yes but does this one really count as a bug? It categories as "enhancement" and I personally agree it's more like a feature request.
- yoz-y 5y ago
  Feature requests like this is precisely the place when saying "it's open source, just do it yourself" is a valid remark.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Don't you first need some kind of consensus where whoever is responsible says "Yes, we will accept this"? I mean these 20-year bugs are a smell where there is indecision, I don't think it's a matter of nobody wanting to go into the code. Decide if it has to be fixed or changed, or explain why you won't, and close the issue. (on that note, I don't like the "this issue is stale -> closed" on GH either, unless the maintainer(s) replied or asked for additional information and the OP abandoned the issue)
    - thesuitonym 5y ago
      If your change is good, you can create consent by making the patch available. People will install it and eventually Mozilla will implement it. In this case though, I doubt you'd get much traction because nobody really cares.
  - Kuinox 5y ago
    It took me more than half a day to get the repo cloned & make it compile. I won't attempt to contribute to firefox again.
juancampa 5y ago
How is that a bug if pages can still change, and thus animate, the favicon via JS?
- yoz-y 5y ago
  As alluded in the comments on that bug, people sometimes actually use animated gifs but almost nobody does the animation via CSS. That said I can't even remember the last time I saw an animated favicon.
  - 6510 5y ago
    I made this for a catering service http://img.go-here.nl/favicon.gif http://img.go-here.nl/favicon.gif
    - jdkjs 5y ago
      Hilarious and cute at the same time.
    - Wojakmeme 5y ago
      wonderful
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  JS modifying favicon would be a bug. AFAIU Faviocon was meant to differentiate browser bookmarks and tabs to make it easier to tell which is what. In March 1999, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 5, which supported favicons for the first time.[4] Originally, the favicon was a file called favicon.ico placed in the root directory of a website. It was used in Internet Explorer's favorites (bookmarks) and next to the URL in the address bar if the page was bookmarked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon#History The fundamental problem is that tabs are already a misfeature of sorts. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_browsing_a_lousy_bandaid_over_poor_browser/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_...
  - 5y ago
caboteria 5y ago
I like that Mozilla doesn't have one of those auto-close bots that are so popular these days on Github.
Ansil849 5y ago
Animated favicons remind me of <marquee> (and the later even more annoying <marquee behavior="alternate">).
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  <blink>
tomxor 5y ago
Only two extremes are proposed, static or fully animated... There is a middle ground: changeable at a low frequency e.g once per 20 secs, allowing useful features such as indicators, counts, status changes etc while neutering distracting animations.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Once every 20s is too frequent by several orders of magnitude for me. I absolute detest and despise animation to a degree that is hard to express.
  - 0des 5y ago
    I hate cooked spinach but it doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to eat it.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Your eating spinach wouldn't generally mean I am subjected to it. Browser support of behaviour in specific features without means to disable it has immpacts on those who have an extreme aversion to it.
  - nsgi 5y ago
    How could once every 20s allow someone to create an animation or be annoying? If it is I'm sure someone could create a browser extension to stop it completely
    - crtasm 5y ago
      Something changing on my screen every 20/60/whatever seconds that is not conveying desired information would really annoy me, it gets my attention.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      I can assure you that in my case it is. Chrome/Android does not support browser extensions. It is a platform used by billions of people. I suspect a few may share my response to animations.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kixiQu 5y ago
This is the kind of thing where everyone thinks the right behavior is really obvious, but those expectations conflict, being drawn from the assumption that one's own preferences and habits are normal, and techie narcissism inflates the importance of the whole thing to nutty size...
- djbusby 5y ago
  Typical Mind Fallacy https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy
jobigoud 5y ago
There is something fascinating to me about casual discussions that span 20 years or more. One day someone will bump a thread on a forum and answer a question that was asked before they were born.
- jakub_g 5y ago
  IIRC There was some decade-plus Mozilla bug over here on HN a few months ago where the newest comment was like "So the OP was my dad, and he's now dead. Anyway, here is some additional info"
  - culi 5y ago
    Incredible. 2 months ago I got an email notification for a Mozilla bug that I subscribed to years ago. It was based on a difference between Chrome and Firefox for one of the first web projects I ever worked on. Now I'm thinking of revisiting that project
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- u801e 5y ago
  A similar thing happens on usenet with people replying to old posts via Google Groups. Though it is interesting to read through a discussion thread I've posted in nearly 25 years later.
jansan 5y ago
This thread is incomplete without a link to Defender of the Favicon (Defender-linke game in the favicon) http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/ http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/
- rzzzt 5y ago
  DOOM favicon can not be left out either: https://vidferris.github.io/FaviconDoom/favicondoom.html https://vidferris.github.io/FaviconDoom/favicondoom.html
zzo38computer 5y ago
I just disable the favicon entirely. (But I agree that if it is enabled, it should probably not be animated. I personally still would not use it, though.)
burnte 5y ago
Fun fact, I created the first every animated favicon on the web for MozillaNews.org. Literally the night the patch landed in nightlies for supporting any format image for favicons, I created an animated one for MozNews and pushed it live. A copy of it from the Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022312im_/http://mozillanews.org/images/favicon.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022312im_/http://mozilla... (Yes, that date is late in the site's life, because I just wanted to grab the image.)
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > I created the first every animated favicon on the web Did you mean "very first animated favicon" or "first ever animated favicon"? Either way, very cool :)
  - burnte 5y ago
    Typos! Yes, the first ever, not first every. And to be clear, yes, I think they're a bad idea because they're too easy to abuse.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      I hate you for your first comment in this thread, and love you for your second. Dr. Ian Malcolm strikes again: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
      - burnte 5y ago
        I will accept both judgments. :D
ForOldHack 5y ago
I would like to play 'Pong' in my flavicon. Damn it.

119 points by graderjs 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Safari unfortunately goes too far the other way, it very aggressively caches the favicon so it can't be easily updated for things like unread counts. Gmail has a useful feature you can turn where it shows you unread email count in the favicon, great for pined tabs. It's completely useless in Safari, just gets stuck for days at a time. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/339350/safari-12-favicon-in-gmail-tab-shows-incorrect-e-mail-count https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/339350/safari-12-f...

capitainenemo 5y ago
That could be a tracking protection feature in Safari? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26051370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26051370 The part where the author files a bug to get caching "fixed" in Firefox is also interesting. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1618257 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1618257 Edit... Sorry. Actually, I forgot how the abuse worked, it relies on persistent caching. So Firefox doesn't cache, preventing bookmark tracking. Safari aggressively caches, so would. Any amount of caching would be a problem. Hm... unless Safari never checks for updates to the Favicon at all. That would defeat the exploit as well. So very aggressive caching with no check for updates, also good? Ok. I stand by my original guess :)
- samwillis 5y ago
  If it's to prevent tracking I'm all for it, but I would love them to then provide an API to enable favicon overlays for badges/notifications (in a tracking abuse free way). Maybe, just maybe, with the news they are finally implementing Web Push Notifications and the suggestion it's the first step towards supporting PWAs, they might create a icon badge api for both the favicon but also PWA icons.
- SilasX 5y ago
  >That could be a tracking protection feature in Safari? Heh, that feels like the Web in a nutshell: Devs: "Hey, wouldn't it be convenient if we cached--" Advertisers: "Aha! Another means to track people!"
- soperj 5y ago
  Classic "that's not a bug that's a feature"
TrueGeek 5y ago
omg, thank you. I've always wondered why my work email count was wonky.
shazron 5y ago
Quoting Apple engineer Brady Eidson: "We (Apple) intentionally do not want the ability to script favicons." source 1: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95979 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95979 source 2: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75877#c1 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75877#c1
- samwillis 5y ago
  Thank you, I went looking for the bug report but couldn't find it. 2012 is a long time ago in the time of the web, hopefully opinions have changed. I think back then Safari didn't have the ability to show favicons in the bookmark toolbar where this is useful, it does now.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  This is part of apples model that the web is for static reference material, and anything more complex should be an app in the apple ecosystem. Apple goes to great lengths to make sure webapps can't be too useful for the user.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    Sound is weird on iOS web. Also, they basically unilaterally decided to say "nah, we're good" to web Bluetooth. I think that could have opened up a lot of awesome stuff. As it stands, getting that to work is possible but the steps to get there are multiplied ten-fold.
    - gbear605 5y ago
      Thank god that Apple never implemented web Bluetooth. One more thing that I don’t have to worry about my web browser mucking with. Please keep the browser out of my peripherals.
      - seanw444 5y ago
        Seriously. Why does everything have to be a web API.
Tempest1981 5y ago
Isn't caching a different issue than playing the animation? The Mozilla issue was (initially) focused on stopping ongoing distracting animations.
tjoff 5y ago
Or just use a native application instead of butchering the web to do a poor job of it.

kayodelycaon 5y ago

I'm sure there are plenty of bugs like this in other browser but yeesh... Unfixed for 20 years because it was an implementation bug no one in authority was willing to fix. No other browser even supports it! Ugh.

thrdbndndn 5y ago
There are plenty old bugs yes but does this one really count as a bug? It categories as "enhancement" and I personally agree it's more like a feature request.
yoz-y 5y ago
Feature requests like this is precisely the place when saying "it's open source, just do it yourself" is a valid remark.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Don't you first need some kind of consensus where whoever is responsible says "Yes, we will accept this"? I mean these 20-year bugs are a smell where there is indecision, I don't think it's a matter of nobody wanting to go into the code. Decide if it has to be fixed or changed, or explain why you won't, and close the issue. (on that note, I don't like the "this issue is stale -> closed" on GH either, unless the maintainer(s) replied or asked for additional information and the OP abandoned the issue)
  - thesuitonym 5y ago
    If your change is good, you can create consent by making the patch available. People will install it and eventually Mozilla will implement it. In this case though, I doubt you'd get much traction because nobody really cares.
- Kuinox 5y ago
  It took me more than half a day to get the repo cloned & make it compile. I won't attempt to contribute to firefox again.

juancampa 5y ago

How is that a bug if pages can still change, and thus animate, the favicon via JS?

yoz-y 5y ago
As alluded in the comments on that bug, people sometimes actually use animated gifs but almost nobody does the animation via CSS. That said I can't even remember the last time I saw an animated favicon.
- 6510 5y ago
  I made this for a catering service http://img.go-here.nl/favicon.gif http://img.go-here.nl/favicon.gif
  - jdkjs 5y ago
    Hilarious and cute at the same time.
  - Wojakmeme 5y ago
    wonderful
dredmorbius 5y ago
JS modifying favicon would be a bug. AFAIU Faviocon was meant to differentiate browser bookmarks and tabs to make it easier to tell which is what. In March 1999, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 5, which supported favicons for the first time.[4] Originally, the favicon was a file called favicon.ico placed in the root directory of a website. It was used in Internet Explorer's favorites (bookmarks) and next to the URL in the address bar if the page was bookmarked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon#History The fundamental problem is that tabs are already a misfeature of sorts. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_browsing_a_lousy_bandaid_over_poor_browser/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_...
- 5y ago

caboteria 5y ago

I like that Mozilla doesn't have one of those auto-close bots that are so popular these days on Github.

Ansil849 5y ago

Animated favicons remind me of <marquee> (and the later even more annoying <marquee behavior="alternate">).

dredmorbius 5y ago
<blink>

tomxor 5y ago

Only two extremes are proposed, static or fully animated... There is a middle ground: changeable at a low frequency e.g once per 20 secs, allowing useful features such as indicators, counts, status changes etc while neutering distracting animations.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Once every 20s is too frequent by several orders of magnitude for me. I absolute detest and despise animation to a degree that is hard to express.
- 0des 5y ago
  I hate cooked spinach but it doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to eat it.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Your eating spinach wouldn't generally mean I am subjected to it. Browser support of behaviour in specific features without means to disable it has immpacts on those who have an extreme aversion to it.
- nsgi 5y ago
  How could once every 20s allow someone to create an animation or be annoying? If it is I'm sure someone could create a browser extension to stop it completely
  - crtasm 5y ago
    Something changing on my screen every 20/60/whatever seconds that is not conveying desired information would really annoy me, it gets my attention.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I can assure you that in my case it is. Chrome/Android does not support browser extensions. It is a platform used by billions of people. I suspect a few may share my response to animations.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kixiQu 5y ago

This is the kind of thing where everyone thinks the right behavior is really obvious, but those expectations conflict, being drawn from the assumption that one's own preferences and habits are normal, and techie narcissism inflates the importance of the whole thing to nutty size...

djbusby 5y ago
Typical Mind Fallacy https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy

jobigoud 5y ago

There is something fascinating to me about casual discussions that span 20 years or more. One day someone will bump a thread on a forum and answer a question that was asked before they were born.

jakub_g 5y ago
IIRC There was some decade-plus Mozilla bug over here on HN a few months ago where the newest comment was like "So the OP was my dad, and he's now dead. Anyway, here is some additional info"
- culi 5y ago
  Incredible. 2 months ago I got an email notification for a Mozilla bug that I subscribed to years ago. It was based on a difference between Chrome and Firefox for one of the first web projects I ever worked on. Now I'm thinking of revisiting that project
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
u801e 5y ago
A similar thing happens on usenet with people replying to old posts via Google Groups. Though it is interesting to read through a discussion thread I've posted in nearly 25 years later.

jansan 5y ago

This thread is incomplete without a link to Defender of the Favicon (Defender-linke game in the favicon) http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/ http://www.p01.org/defender_of_the_favicon/

rzzzt 5y ago
DOOM favicon can not be left out either: https://vidferris.github.io/FaviconDoom/favicondoom.html https://vidferris.github.io/FaviconDoom/favicondoom.html

zzo38computer 5y ago

I just disable the favicon entirely. (But I agree that if it is enabled, it should probably not be animated. I personally still would not use it, though.)

burnte 5y ago

Fun fact, I created the first every animated favicon on the web for MozillaNews.org. Literally the night the patch landed in nightlies for supporting any format image for favicons, I created an animated one for MozNews and pushed it live. A copy of it from the Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022312im_/http://mozillanews.org/images/favicon.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022312im_/http://mozilla... (Yes, that date is late in the site's life, because I just wanted to grab the image.)

jonny_eh 5y ago
> I created the first every animated favicon on the web Did you mean "very first animated favicon" or "first ever animated favicon"? Either way, very cool :)
- burnte 5y ago
  Typos! Yes, the first ever, not first every. And to be clear, yes, I think they're a bad idea because they're too easy to abuse.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I hate you for your first comment in this thread, and love you for your second. Dr. Ian Malcolm strikes again: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
    - burnte 5y ago
      I will accept both judgments. :D

ForOldHack 5y ago

I would like to play 'Pong' in my flavicon. Damn it.