Shortcuts not using favicon

DavidC-Surrey

DavidC-Surrey

I have been using Opera for Windows for some time now on Windows 10 but on installing it on a new computer and an old Win7 computer, neither of those show the website's favicon if I save a shortcut. Instead they show the Opera big O icon.

It works properly on my main computer - if I go to Amazon and drag a link off the address bar to my desktop, I get an Amazon icon, but on the other two computers I just get the Opera icon. I have the three machines synced up with my Opera login.

How do I change this behaviour please?

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

Opera just creates a .url file. If you look at it in a text editor, it'll just have:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=https://arstechnica.com/

for example.

Chrome does the same when dragging the URL out of the window to the desktop. There's no icon information present in the .url file. Same for the new Microsoft Edge.

The icon for all .url files created this way will be the same. It'll be the icon for the browser/program associated with the .url extension in Windows.

Now, in Chrome for example, if you goto menu -> more tools, you can choose "create shortcut" instead. That will create a special chrome_proxy.exe shortcut with the icon embedded. But, Opera doesn't support this. The new Microsoft Edge does this with the "install this site as an app".

The old Microsoft Edge I think used to add an icon file= line to its .url files like this:

IconFile=https://www.microsoft.com/favicon.ico
IconIndex=0

, but I don't remember for sure.

With that said, you might have to add the IconFile info yourself now. But, it seems in Windows 10 at least for me, remote URLs aren't working for the icon file. They have to be local. As in, download the .ico file into the same folder as the shortcut and it might work just as is. Or, if you have to, edit the IconFile path to the local path for the icon. Or, right-click on the .url file, goto properties and change its icon that way.

For example:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=https://arstechnica.com/
IconFile=file:///C:/Users/yourusername/desktop/ArsTechnica.ico
IconIndex=0

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @DavidC-Surrey

@DavidC-Surrey said in Shortcuts not using favicon:

It works properly on my main computer - if I go to Amazon and drag a link off the address bar to my desktop, I get an Amazon icon, but on the other two computers I just get the Opera icon.

Hmm, don't know.

DavidC-Surrey

DavidC-Surrey

Yes I saw this in an older post on the subject, but it doesn't explain why my main computer does this fine with most website. For example I just created shortcuts to Microsoft and Amazon by going to the website and dragging off the address bar to my desktop and there is the microsoft logo and amazon logo. It doesn't work with Netflix, but that may be because their website doesn't provide one for Opera to use.

So although I hear what you are saying, that can't be the end of it, because if it works on one computer it should be able to work on one which is almost identical on the desk next to it!

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

On the computer where it works, what's the source of one of the working shortcuts (as viewed in a text editor)? When posting it, indent each line by 4 spaces.

Also, what default browser is set and what browser is associated with .url files?

DavidC-Surrey

DavidC-Surrey @burnout426

@burnout426 said in Shortcuts not using favicon:

On the computer where it works, what's the source of one of the working shortcuts (as viewed in a text editor)? When posting it, indent each line by 4 spaces.

Also, what default browser is set and what browser is associated with .url files?

[InternetShortcut]
URL=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B086VVNPYG

Opera is the default browser.

In Regedit, HKCR, .URL has "OpenWithProgIds" of default containing (value not set)
and Internet Shortcut with no data.

It is showing the same info on the other computer too

DavidC-Surrey

DavidC-Surrey @DavidC-Surrey

Further to this... On the disobedient computer, I just set Internet Explorer as the default browser and created three links using IE11, from Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix. They all produce icons as expected.

Then I set Opera back as the default browser and created the same three icons again and this time it made the correct ones for Amazon and Microsoft but Netflix still creates the big red O.

How very odd.

I guess I could do that each time I want to save a link to a website but it's incredibly clunky! I wonder why they don't want to fix this. I mean, it's not like web browsing is a new thing

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

I'm guessing certain icons are in the Windows icon cache because of some other program you used to create shortcuts (IE for example, but good be others I guess) and Windows keeps a URL reference for each icon and applies them to shortcuts that don't specify their own icons. Try with a site you've never visited before in any browser or any app and create a shortcut for it. You probably won't get the site's icon for it.

If you use some utility to clear the Windows icon cache, I'm guessing that none of the shortcuts on that system that you produce with Opera will show the site's icon.

I guess I could do that each time I want to save a link to a website but it's incredibly clunky!

Yeah, sounds like that'd work. But, as you said, that'd be clunky.

I wonder why they don't want to fix this. I mean, it's not like web browsing is a new thing.

I don't know, but since Opera is Chromium-based, if you get this improved/fixed in Chromium, all Chromium-based browsers including Opera should get it too.