Google's undocumented favicon to png convertor (via) Showing the favicon of a domain next to a link is a really nice trick, but it’s slightly tricky to achieve as IE won’t display a .ico file if you link to it from an img element, so you need to convert the images server-side. This undocumented Google API does that for you, meaning it’s much easier to add favicons as a feature to your site.
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Interestingly, it seems that if the .ico file has a 32x32px icon Google's thing will make the png from that instead of the conventional 16x16px version. Might cause sub-optimal results if it's used in places that want only 16x16px icons. See, for example, http://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=livejourn al.com .
I also find it interesting that they take 16-colour icons and turn them into 32-bit PNGs. They're still not especially large, but larger than they would be if they were 16-colour.
I've been using this to prettify my friendfeed feed for a few months. Works a treat...
http://jasoncartwright.com
Tried it with a post of mine.
Now to see if Google closes this open API.
Shelley - 31st August 2008 17:48 - #
It's a pity it doesn't send caching headers for converted images.
Nice feature, but unfortunately this doesn't work if the site has a Favicon defined by a LINK tag that's somewhere other than /favicon.ico.
Sean O - 4th September 2008 19:51 - #