How to prevent favicon.ico requests?

Question

I don't have a favicon.ico, but my browser always makes a request for it.

Is it possible to prevent the browser from making a request for the favicon from my site? Maybe some META-TAG in the HTML header?

Answer 1

I will first say that having a favicon in a Web page is a good thing (normally).

However it is not always desired and sometime developers need a way to avoid the extra payload. For example an IFRAME would request a favicon without showing it. Worst yet, in Chrome and Android an IFRAME will generate 3 requests for favicons:

"GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 183
"GET /apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png HTTP/1.1" 404 197
"GET /apple-touch-icon.png HTTP/1.1" 404 189

The following uses data URI and can be used to avoid fake favicon requests:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="data:image/x-icon;," type="image/x-icon"> 

For references see here:

• https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/issues/1103
• https://twitter.com/diegoperini/status/4882543836930048

UPDATE 1:

From the comments (jpic) it looks like Firefox >= 25 doesn't like the above syntax anymore. I tested on Firefox 27 and it doesn't work while it still work on Webkit/Chrome.

So here is the new one that should cover all recent browsers. I tested Safari, Chrome and Firefox:

<link rel="icon" href="data:;base64,=">

I left out the "shortcut" name from the "rel" attribute value since that's only for older IE and versions of IE < 8 doesn't like dataURIs either. Not tested on IE8.

UPDATE 2:

If you need your document to validate against HTML5 use this instead:

<link rel="icon" href="data:;base64,iVBORw0KGgo=">