Use PNG for favicon.ico instead

December 16, 2020

We don’t use favicon.ico because the .ico format is uncompressed ~ 16 kB. Instead we suggest creating a compressed favicon that works in place of favicon.ico for all web browsers we tried. These files are typically 1..2 kB instead of 16 kB, which is significant for a text-based website.

favicon.png
favicon-16x16.png
favicon-32x32.png

Then we create an empty file favicon.ico that web browsers will ignore, and use the PNG instead.