You need to drag the icon from the end of the location bar often a on this site that will be a padlock. That continues to work for me.

• As explained in this article Create a desktop shortcut to a website

I am not sure anything has changed about Favicons. There is however another post where someone has problems it may be worth watching that

• shortcut to bookmarks don't show an icon
  /questions/1062393 (The first three posts are from Windows 7 users)

It may be better asking on a Windows forum regarding problems of Windows Desktop Shortcuts not displaying icons.

If favicons disappear on Firefox they normally reappear once the related sites are visited again. There are addons that may help

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=favicons&cat=1%2C0&appver=38.0
  • https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/favicon-restorer/

Thanks for your reply John99. Unfortunately, I have tried all this to no avail. I have scoured the web for solutions - and there are many examples of this problem on Firefox/Windows forums/blogs/help pages - but none of them actually solve the problem. As you mention. this phenomenon is also widely reported on Windows forums but, as I understand it, how the jump lists and icons work is controlled by the application (i.e. Firefox) rather than Windows. Furthermore, these features work correctly on Chrome and IE. It may well be a corruption of my Windows installation but I am loath to Refresh/Reinstall as it is such a pain to get the PC back to where it was. Thanks anyway.

I suspect this is a Windows rather than a Firefox issue.

as I understand it, how the jump lists and icons work is controlled by the application (i.e. Firefox) rather than Windows.

Lets see if anyone is able to clarify or solve this over the next few days if not post back and I will see what I can do to escalate it to obtain advice.

I tend not to use Windows much these days but suspect this sort of thing is going to be controlled by registry entries. If that is correct then answers are likely to be out there somewhere on a Windows forum but I am sure it is something many Firefox users need answers for.

Again, thanks for the reply. The reason I am asking about the policy for how Firefox handles favicons is that I have the same issue on two completely different PCs. I therefore suspect it is something that has been changed in the Firefox code without sufficient explanation. Unfortunately, I am just going round in circles regarding the many supposed fixes I have found. Anyway, like you say, lets see if anyone out there can throw any light on this issue.

You can try to toggle the browser.shell.shortcutFavicons pref on the about:config page (may not work on XP).

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

Hi cor-el, already tried that - no luck. Thanks. So annoying. Favicons appear on the browser tab and in the history - just not in a desktop shortcuts or the jump list. Have played around with (what look like) other applicable about:config settings also, with no luck.

I am experiencing this problem too. See my question: 'Ability to see favicons in desktop shortcuts lost after upgrade from 25.0 to 38.0.5 on Windows' https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1069162

In fact I discovered that 33.1 is the first version to exhibit this problem.

It is also interesting you stated

DID work in versions 35.0 to 36.0.4 inclusive, but stopped working again from 37.0 to 38.0.6 (the current version) inclusive.

N.B. Very important: If you wish to test for yourself, you must use a different website each time. This is because Windows itself caches desktop icons (whether they are 'right' or 'wrong') and so if you drag the same website's shortcut to the desktop each time you will get misleading results.

John99 said

It is also interesting you stated

DID work in versions 35.0 to 36.0.4 inclusive, but stopped working again from 37.0 to 38.0.6 (the current version) inclusive.

Yup, it is curious that the problem was fixed in some versions and then 'unfixed' later on.

There must be a Bugzilla bug for this particular issue, although I haven't found it.

And added

N.B. Very important: If you wish to test for yourself, you must use a different website each time. This is because Windows itself caches desktop icons (whether they are 'right' or 'wrong') and so if you drag the same website's shortcut to the desktop each time you will get misleading results.

Indeed.

To be clear, the "misleading results" to which I referred were as follows:

a) If you drag a shortcut for a website to the desktop using a version of Firefox that produces broken shortcut icons (i.e. white generic document icons) then Windows will cache this (incorrect) version of the icon. If you then delete this shortcut and drag a new shortcut from the same website using a different version of Firefox that does correctly create shortcuts with the correct favicons then the old, incorrect, icon will be still be shown by Windows!

b) It happens the other way too. Windows will cache the correct favicon if you start off with that one and then delete the shortcut and replace it via a version of Firefox that produces broken icons.

The only way round this cacheing for the purposes of testing is, as above, to use a different website each time so that the icon will not be cache by Windows (or, I presume, although I have not tested, to clear Windows' icon cache between each attempt).

Needless to say, I was most careful to use a different website each time when I was going through the various Firefox versions to find which ones produced favicons and which did not.

I couldn't find a Bugzilla bug for this so I've reported it:

'Bug 1178132 - Favicons do not appear in desktop shortcut (.url) files' https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1178132