Make Firefox 3 Beta NOT update favicons...

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liquidator87
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Make Firefox 3 Beta NOT update favicons...

Post by liquidator87 »

As title says...

In firefox 2.x I had bookmarks with favicons replaced (the original were orrible...)
Updated to Firefox 3 Beta 5... when click on a bookmark, it restore the original, orrible looking favicon...

Can I avoid this?
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SK.
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Post by SK. »

Moving to Firefox Builds.
John 3:16 and Philippians 4:13
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RobertJ
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Post by RobertJ »

I've seen this but only with some sites. I have not been able to figure our how to stop it. The favicons are now stored in the places.sqlite sql data base file. This file can't be edited with a text editor and I've found that SQLite editors I've experimented with can't change the favicon data.

Lastly, the Favicon Picker 2 add-on appears like it will no longer be supported.

So, unless someone comes up with something I've resigned myself to being stuck with some ugly favicons.

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couldabeen
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Post by couldabeen »

There's this thread with information about SQLite extension (Requires SQLite).
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... =favicons'
And this one
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... t=favicons

What I did was go and download the SQLite Browser 1.3 and unzip it to a convenient place.
Make sure Minefield is closed and Open the SQL Browser and go to your Profile and open the places.sqlite file. On the second tab labeled Browse Data, select the moz_favicons table on the drop down box at top and remove them. Then select the moz_places table in the drop down, find the column labeled favicon_id and remove the number that was there.
Close out SQLiteBrowser, open Minefield, and they shoud be gone. Mine have stayed gone.

I did not try the extension, but I assume it will do the same, except the icons won't be removed until Minefield is started the next time.
liquidator87
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Post by liquidator87 »

Yes, with this method I can remove favicons...

But I want firefox not to update existing favicons...
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scratch
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Post by scratch »

disable the favicon and site icon prefs. firefox will continue to display icons that are already present, but will not update them with new ones.
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Post by zeniko »

liquidator87: There's currently no extension for this specific request. Code-wise it'd be very simple to achieve, though. For the time being, you could go and install the userChrome.js extension and then append the following line to the end of the userChrome.js file (created by that extension in your profile's chrome folder):

Code: Select all

eval("gBrowser.setIcon = " + gBrowser.setIcon.toString().replace(/this\.mFav[^;]*;/, ""));
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couldabeen
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Post by couldabeen »

liquidator87 wrote:Yes, with this method I can remove favicons...

But I want firefox not to update existing favicons...

Scratch alluded to this,(I think).
About:Config, filter for 'favicons' and set this one to false>>> browser.chrome.favicons.
Do the same for browser.chrome.site_icons.
If they are not there, right click and pick New>Boolean. Add the above(copy and paste), and then set them to False.

You will need to restart Minefield for it to be effective.
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Post by JulianL »

Ouch. This is really going to bug me. I've switched to FF 3 b5 for my main browser and I absolutely love it, so much faster it's amazing, but I really rely on my bookmarks toolbar and so Favicon Picker 2 and Smart Bookmarks Bar are two of my must-have add-ons and are both in my "why isn't this basic Firefox functionality?" category.

Is there any alternative to Favicon Picker 2 out there that works with FF3? Is anyone in touch with the author regarding a FF3 update? Personally I would definitely donate money to get this capability back.

Right now I'm considering resorting to keeping FF2 installed on an old laptop with Favicon Picker 2 installed. That way then when I need to make a change to my bookmarks toolbar I can do it on my laptop, fix up the icon with favicon picker 2, export the bookmarks toolbar folder, copy the file across to my main PC, and then import it into FF3 (being careful to disable the favicon and site icon pref on my FF3 installation). Firstly, is there any reason why this won't work? Secondly, surely there must be some better way to do what should be a 5 second operation!?

- Julian

P.S. Since I suspect that many people who care about favicon picker 2 might also care about an icon-only bookmarks toolbar, I've discovered that even though Smart Bookmarks isn't recognised by beta 5 as being FF3 compatible the author's change log does say that he has updated it for FF3 so all that is needed is to use the Nightly Tester addon to force it to be seen as compatible (Make Compatible) and it seems to work perfectly on my setup.
liquidator87
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Post by liquidator87 »

couldabeen wrote:About:Config, filter for 'favicons' and set this one to false>>> browser.chrome.favicons.
Do the same for browser.chrome.site_icons.

Thanks, that worked pretty well :D
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RobertJ
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Post by RobertJ »

JulianL wrote:Is there any alternative to Favicon Picker 2 out there that works with FF3? Is anyone in touch with the author regarding a FF3 update? Personally I would definitely donate money to get this capability back.

No alternative. I've emailed the author twice with no response. FF3 made significant changes when it went to the "places" scheme. This may cause the Favicon Picker 2 developer more work than he has time for. It looks like he is a college student and FP 2 is his only add-on.

Over the years I've seen add-ons be abandoned. I myself picked up one from FF1.5 which was a hack from Netscape packaged as an add-on. I "fixed" it for FF2. I've tried to "fix" it for FF3; close but not there.

So, this is a hack of a hack of a hack with almost no commenting. At this point there are enough changes in FF3 that I "should" start from scratch since the existing code is so convoluted. I have no interest in "starting from scratch". So unless someone provides me with the "magic bullet" to solve the last problem it has, I'll likely give up.

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liquidator87
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Post by liquidator87 »

There's a little trick I've found for assigning custom favicons, it's a little complicated, but it works...
- Export your bookmarks
- Adjust your custom favicon (i.e. 16x16 png)
- Encode it in base64 (http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp)
- Open with notepad the bookmarks.html file and find the entry you want to modify
- Add the tag
ICON="data:image/png;base64,[custom-encoded-text]"
where [custom-encoded-text] is obviously the result of the encode
- Re-import (and adjust, if necessary) your new bookmarks, you should find the favicon modified (it worked for me)
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RobertJ
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Post by RobertJ »

liquidator87 - While a bit ugly I'm sure it works.

QUESTION - I have noticed that after moving to FF3b4/5 some of my custom favicons do not go to the default while others do. For example I had custom favicons for the FF mozillazine forums and they went to the default while the custom favicon I use for addons.mozilla.org did not go to default. There must be some type of flag set in the bookmark file to cause this.

Any thoughts?

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liquidator87
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Post by liquidator87 »

mmm...

Same thing happened to me but it was for the favicons not found... so not updated
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RobertJ
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Post by RobertJ »

Here is what seems to allow keeping old custom favicons. If in the bookmarks.html you export from the places.sqlite file you see this

ICON_URI="http://www.mozilla.org/2005/made-up-favicon/96-1206219324939782"

The favicon will not change in FF3. However, if you see something like this

ICON_URI="http://static.mozillazine.org/common/images/favicon.ico"

the favicon goes to the default. I have no idea how the made up designation was arrived at when moving from FF2 to FF3.

I also have yet to figure out what encoding is used for the favicons in the places.sqlite file; it is not base64.

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