drivelocity.com » Favicon

New Google Favicon

drivelocity — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:07:34 +0000

The news about Google’s updated Favicon may not be new, but it’s taking me some time to get used to it. In fact, it still throws me off when I go to switch back to my search results. Something else was bugging me, and it took a closer look and a few minutes in Photoshop to determine what it was…

Take a look at Google’s new Favicon below and compare it to the logo for a company many people love to hate. What do you think?

Notice that the pattern of colors in the new Google Favicon is identical to the pattern of colors in Microsoft’s logo… Turn the MS logo 45 degrees clockwise and it’s even more clear. I’m not saying Google would ever rip off a logo, especially the logo used by one of the world’s largest software developers, but it seems as though Google could have tried to match the color pattern of their own logo.

Going clockwise around the Favicon and the Microsft logo, the pattern of colors becomes blue, red, green, yellow. However, the color pattern of the Google logo is blue, red, yellow, blue, green, red. If you eliminate the second blue, since it’s repeated, the pattern would be blue, red, yellow, green. Even if you take off the first blue and red, or start from the other side and work backwards, the pattern would be different.

So, why the similarity? Why not take that extra step?

Large Green Favicon in Firefox?

drivelocity — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:58:26 +0000

If you’re like me, you’ve visited sites like PayPal or GoDaddy and wondered why, in Firefox, they have a large green Favicon, unlike the smaller ones we’re used to seeing. So, what’s that all about?

Mozilla has a newer feature included that appends the URL of the site onto the Favicon (along with the green background) to show that it has a valid SSL certificate. Clicking on a Favicon in Firefox brings up a dropdown with some information as you can see below.

Clicking on the More Information… button brings up the Page Info window. You can view PayPal’s below.

You can see that on sites with SSL Certificates there is additional information on the Security tab of their Page Info windows. Compare these to your site’s to see how they differ.

Another use of the Favicon in Firefox is the ability to drag it to your Bookmarks or History menu items or sidebars to easily save your favorite sites. You can even drag and drop it onto your computer’s desktop.

Click here to download Firefox 3

UPDATE:

I should point out that just by having a SSL Certificate Firefox will not automatically display a green “secure” Favicon… Click here for an example of various packages offered by one provider, one of which includes the green address bar.

Creating a Favicon

drivelocity — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:12:32 +0000

There are probably still many of you who do not know what that icon is next to the URL in the address bar of your browser for many popular sites, and like the one we have here on drivelocity.com.

Follow these simple instructions to create one for your web site:

Create a 16×16 pixel image
Save it as “favicon.gif”
Upload it to your site’s root directory
Rename it “favicon.ico”
Add the following code to your site’s header (before )

Please note that Internet Explorer is not as reliable about displaying the Favicon as Firefox is… If using IE, you may need to save your site to your Favorites for it to show up.

Here are some resources that can help you create your own Favicon and test to see if it is valid.