Firefox bookmark icons

If you use Firefox and you save bookmarks, then you have probably noticed that some bookmarks display an icon next to them. These are known as a favicons.

These favicons can help you visually identify a bookmark, but what happens when the wrong favicon is displayed for a particular bookmark? First off, I don't know how this happens, but I have seen it several times. Previously, the only way I knew to fix this was to delete the bookmark and add it again. This is sort of a pain since you have to take the time to put the new bookmark back in the same place. Here is another way.

• Close all sessions of FireFox
• Find a file called bookmarks.html in your Firefox profile. This is generally located here: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profilename>\
• Copy this file (just in case....)
• Open bookmarks.html using your favorite HTML editor, or Notepad.
• Search for the bookmark that you want to edit.
• You will see some HTML code like this:

  <A HREF="http://www.google.com
      ADD_DATE="1155432765"
      LAST_VISIT="1651389765"
      LAST_CHARSET="UTF-8"
      ID="rdf:##Mj4I$"
      ICON="data:image/x-icon;base64,AAA">
      Google
      </a>

  ...except that the data in quotes after the ICON label will be much longer.

• Just delete the entire ICON="" section, including the contents of this section.
• Save the bookmarks.html file and close it.
• Restart Firefox and pick your bookmark, the correct icon should now appear.