Jason Bassford wrote: > I don't think anybody is getting angry over the <LINK> tag, which > only produces traffic when the Web designer wants it. The objection > is over the default use of the client asking for favicon.ico which may > or may not exist.
Don't worry, I know exactly what people have been saying they like or dislike. I know people seem to like the <link> tag and not the favicon.ico. > The client should be a way of viewing what a Web > site is publishing. It shouldn't be something that "impolitely" SPAMs > a site with spurious requests that have no basis in the code on the > site itself. All I've been trying to explain is that: 1) Favicon requests put minimal load on servers either way. 2) If publishers want an icon displayed, and they care about bandwidth, favicon.ico is actually BETTER. 3) If you don't want an icon displayed, favicon does make a tiny number of additional requests, but even those can be minimized with an empty file called "favicon.ico". 4) The debate has nothing to do with web standards, because both favicon.ico and <link> tags are valid no matter how you slice them. But then again, this debate was never about what is best for anything. It's just a bitch session where the *REAL* targets are Internet Explorer and whoever enabled the favicon.ico feature in recent Mozilla builds. --Mike
