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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=9

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.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Because distributing apps to iOS isn't commercially viable?
    - kitsunesoba 5y ago
      I could see Bluetooth support maybe making sense for PWAs the user has explicitly chosen to add to their Home Screen, but I really don’t want to see random sites I’m visiting prompt for access.
    - onion2k 5y ago
      I find it weirdly interesting when people argue that a browser shouldn't have a feature, rather than the feature should be behind a defaults-to-off permission. You're not just saying that you don't want it, you're arguing that no one should want it. You're saying that you don't believe there is any possible reason for the feature to exist, that you will never want it, and that anyone who says they'd like it is wrong. I suppose that's fine. It's your perogative. I just hope you respect the opinion of other people when they say things you want shouldn't exist.
      - D13Fd 5y ago
        I don’t think it’s unreasonable to not want a browser to support hard-to-maintain features that you will likely never want or use. There is a limited pool of dev resources, and supporting that defaults-to-off setting is going to suck up a disproportionate amount of dev resources, on an ongoing basis, to support a small minority of users. I’d rather the dev resources go to new features that many people will use.
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        Javascript was behind a "defaults to off" switch, until enough of the Web said "fuck it, we'd rather break than provide a person with what they've specifically requested and set a limit on". And now those of us who point out that mandatory JS is broken and a vector for all manner of ills are thought to be deranged. I'm not often an Apple fan, but I have intense admiration for this line they've drawn in the sand.
      - Timpy 5y ago
        This seems to be Apple's design philosophy. I can't change the direction of my touch pad scrolling without affecting my mouse scrolling, I had to download a third party app for that. Their defaults are so stubborn, if you don't like it the way they believe it should be it's either annoying or impossible to change it.
      - gbear605 5y ago
        In my experience, when a platform adds support for something like that, apps quickly start requiring that you have the feature on, even unrelated apps. For example, a ton of apps, especially sketchier ones or ones aimed at children, ask to see your location even though they have no legitimate use for it. If you don’t allow it, you can’t use the app. Obviously what they’re using it for is datamining, so I’m worse off than in the world where the app isn’t able to ask for location access. Obviously it’s good that some apps do have access to location! I play Pokemon Go and use third party map apps! But I think the world would be better off if the requirements to be allowed to ask were more stringent. For something like web bluetooth, while there are some rare use cases, I’m sure that pretty soon it’ll start being another tool for removing privacy and I’d rather err on the side of caution. From an entirely separate side, I think that we’d all be better off if the entire web was much simpler to implement. We’re almost in a browser monoculture now and we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t so difficult to implement a browser that supports modern websites.
- baxuz 5y ago
  Yep. And I love how they add in broken behaviour for things like still not being able to properly scroll elements which have `position: fixed`. Or trying to make the page have a static fixed height while scrolling.
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
oauea 5y ago
Another case of apple ignoring standards in favor of their own preferences.
- laumars 5y ago
  It is but I don’t see that as a bad thing on this occasion because diversity in rendering engines, even if some are opinionated, is better than a Blink monoculture (or Trident before it)
  - realusername 5y ago
    I would not mind if it was possible to switch but a lot of people are stuck with safari mobile.
    - laumars 5y ago
      That’s a different issue though. But I agree that’s a problem.
- Spivak 5y ago
  User agents are explicitly allowed to have their own preferences, that's the whole point of having multiple browsers in the first place. If you want every browser to be identical then why even have more than one? Browsers don't even have to have display favicons if they don't want to.
- yakubin 5y ago
  > Another case of apple ignoring Google in favor of their own preferences. Fixed that for you.
systemvoltage 5y ago
I absolutely agree. Animated favicons would be extremely jarring. It’s purpose is to identify the site. It does that job perfectly. The web is already a fricking Casino.
- nvader 5y ago
  'The Web is a Casino' sounds like an amazing title for a polemic.
- secabeen 5y ago
  I find them useful in some cases. I play board games online, and both sites I use will update the favicon (either with a new color or an animated shape) to tell me that it's my turn.
  - hunter2_ 5y ago
    Sounds like that use case really wants something like silent push notifications (no sound, no toast, but it's there waiting when you decide to pull down and look for updates from all apps in one place). Yes, I said push and pull to describe a sort of hybrid model. Android offers this, but I'm not sure if desktop OSes do.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      I think people would prefer notifications here, but Safari doesn't support that either.
      - kitsunesoba 5y ago
        Desktop Safari supports notifications, it’s only mobile Safari that lacks them.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  "Animated" is one thing, allowing updates every once in a while is another.
tshaddox 5y ago
I totally agree with that, but couldn't the favicons still support the same browser caching mechanisms as the HTML document? If I can refresh the page and get a new HTML response, surely I should at the same time get a new favicon if a new one exists.
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  Most people probably wouldn't want to refresh an SPA like Gmail every time the favicon isn't showing the correct unread count. But for infrequent rebranding, I agree with you.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Yes, I'm not trying to address the feature of having animated favicons or favicons set dynamically using JS. I'm just trying to address the problem of favicons apparently being very stale. My question is why Apple couldn't fix that problem, which is not at odds with Apple's stance against animated or dynamic favicons.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  That would allow websites to override Apple's objection, and therefore they can't allow it, even if it will cause occasional problems for websites that think they can do a total branding pivot including favicon overnight.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Why is that related to Apple's object to animated favicons or favicons that are set dynamically by JavaScript?
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      If Safari didn’t aggressively cache favicons, websites trying to overcome Apple’s objection would immediately start trying to use window.reload() and server-side dynamically generating favicon paths, for random “I made this up before coffee” example, which would burn more battery power on Apple devices for endless page reload events. Caching aggressively makes it a non-starter to try and engineer workarounds, and comes at zero impact to users (who are either accustomed to the old favicon and don’t care about rebranding, or ignoring it).
bobbylarrybobby 5y ago
I mean, the optimal solution is obviously a web standard that allows for notification badges on tabs. Each site changing their favicon to show a notification badge is a hack.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  Could it be done using JS to put the count in the page title? I realize Unicode and emojis might not be ideal but they could supplement such an approach.

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.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Because distributing apps to iOS isn't commercially viable?
  - kitsunesoba 5y ago
    I could see Bluetooth support maybe making sense for PWAs the user has explicitly chosen to add to their Home Screen, but I really don’t want to see random sites I’m visiting prompt for access.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    I find it weirdly interesting when people argue that a browser shouldn't have a feature, rather than the feature should be behind a defaults-to-off permission. You're not just saying that you don't want it, you're arguing that no one should want it. You're saying that you don't believe there is any possible reason for the feature to exist, that you will never want it, and that anyone who says they'd like it is wrong. I suppose that's fine. It's your perogative. I just hope you respect the opinion of other people when they say things you want shouldn't exist.
    - D13Fd 5y ago
      I don’t think it’s unreasonable to not want a browser to support hard-to-maintain features that you will likely never want or use. There is a limited pool of dev resources, and supporting that defaults-to-off setting is going to suck up a disproportionate amount of dev resources, on an ongoing basis, to support a small minority of users. I’d rather the dev resources go to new features that many people will use.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Javascript was behind a "defaults to off" switch, until enough of the Web said "fuck it, we'd rather break than provide a person with what they've specifically requested and set a limit on". And now those of us who point out that mandatory JS is broken and a vector for all manner of ills are thought to be deranged. I'm not often an Apple fan, but I have intense admiration for this line they've drawn in the sand.
    - Timpy 5y ago
      This seems to be Apple's design philosophy. I can't change the direction of my touch pad scrolling without affecting my mouse scrolling, I had to download a third party app for that. Their defaults are so stubborn, if you don't like it the way they believe it should be it's either annoying or impossible to change it.
    - gbear605 5y ago
      In my experience, when a platform adds support for something like that, apps quickly start requiring that you have the feature on, even unrelated apps. For example, a ton of apps, especially sketchier ones or ones aimed at children, ask to see your location even though they have no legitimate use for it. If you don’t allow it, you can’t use the app. Obviously what they’re using it for is datamining, so I’m worse off than in the world where the app isn’t able to ask for location access. Obviously it’s good that some apps do have access to location! I play Pokemon Go and use third party map apps! But I think the world would be better off if the requirements to be allowed to ask were more stringent. For something like web bluetooth, while there are some rare use cases, I’m sure that pretty soon it’ll start being another tool for removing privacy and I’d rather err on the side of caution. From an entirely separate side, I think that we’d all be better off if the entire web was much simpler to implement. We’re almost in a browser monoculture now and we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t so difficult to implement a browser that supports modern websites.
baxuz 5y ago
Yep. And I love how they add in broken behaviour for things like still not being able to properly scroll elements which have `position: fixed`. Or trying to make the page have a static fixed height while scrolling.
toiletfuneral 5y ago

oauea 5y ago

Another case of apple ignoring standards in favor of their own preferences.

laumars 5y ago
It is but I don’t see that as a bad thing on this occasion because diversity in rendering engines, even if some are opinionated, is better than a Blink monoculture (or Trident before it)
- realusername 5y ago
  I would not mind if it was possible to switch but a lot of people are stuck with safari mobile.
  - laumars 5y ago
    That’s a different issue though. But I agree that’s a problem.
Spivak 5y ago
User agents are explicitly allowed to have their own preferences, that's the whole point of having multiple browsers in the first place. If you want every browser to be identical then why even have more than one? Browsers don't even have to have display favicons if they don't want to.
yakubin 5y ago
> Another case of apple ignoring Google in favor of their own preferences. Fixed that for you.

systemvoltage 5y ago

I absolutely agree. Animated favicons would be extremely jarring. It’s purpose is to identify the site. It does that job perfectly. The web is already a fricking Casino.

nvader 5y ago
'The Web is a Casino' sounds like an amazing title for a polemic.
secabeen 5y ago
I find them useful in some cases. I play board games online, and both sites I use will update the favicon (either with a new color or an animated shape) to tell me that it's my turn.
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  Sounds like that use case really wants something like silent push notifications (no sound, no toast, but it's there waiting when you decide to pull down and look for updates from all apps in one place). Yes, I said push and pull to describe a sort of hybrid model. Android offers this, but I'm not sure if desktop OSes do.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I think people would prefer notifications here, but Safari doesn't support that either.
    - kitsunesoba 5y ago
      Desktop Safari supports notifications, it’s only mobile Safari that lacks them.
Dylan16807 5y ago
"Animated" is one thing, allowing updates every once in a while is another.

tshaddox 5y ago

I totally agree with that, but couldn't the favicons still support the same browser caching mechanisms as the HTML document? If I can refresh the page and get a new HTML response, surely I should at the same time get a new favicon if a new one exists.

hunter2_ 5y ago
Most people probably wouldn't want to refresh an SPA like Gmail every time the favicon isn't showing the correct unread count. But for infrequent rebranding, I agree with you.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Yes, I'm not trying to address the feature of having animated favicons or favicons set dynamically using JS. I'm just trying to address the problem of favicons apparently being very stale. My question is why Apple couldn't fix that problem, which is not at odds with Apple's stance against animated or dynamic favicons.
floatingatoll 5y ago
That would allow websites to override Apple's objection, and therefore they can't allow it, even if it will cause occasional problems for websites that think they can do a total branding pivot including favicon overnight.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Why is that related to Apple's object to animated favicons or favicons that are set dynamically by JavaScript?
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    If Safari didn’t aggressively cache favicons, websites trying to overcome Apple’s objection would immediately start trying to use window.reload() and server-side dynamically generating favicon paths, for random “I made this up before coffee” example, which would burn more battery power on Apple devices for endless page reload events. Caching aggressively makes it a non-starter to try and engineer workarounds, and comes at zero impact to users (who are either accustomed to the old favicon and don’t care about rebranding, or ignoring it).

bobbylarrybobby 5y ago

I mean, the optimal solution is obviously a web standard that allows for notification badges on tabs. Each site changing their favicon to show a notification badge is a hack.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
Could it be done using JS to put the count in the page title? I realize Unicode and emojis might not be ideal but they could supplement such an approach.