Favicons are now more important then ever, they help you in branding your website online. While it’s just a tiny icon it’s one the first things people see, appears in many social bookmarking tools and it’s visible in your favorites/bookmarks in browsers.
With the release of Firefox 3 favicons not using transparency look extra ugly next to the address bar and in tabs. A lot of sites use white as their background color not transparent which results in a ugly white background on the new gray background next to the address bar.
While online favicon generators like favikon.com are nice, they don’t offer the full control you should have over your icons. I create all of my favicons in Photoshop and use a nifty little plug-in called Iconbuilder. Iconbuilder by Iconfactory gives you a lot (maybe even a overkill) of export functions. You can create icons in multiple sizes and export directly to the .ico format (including transparency).
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Ellen
June 18th, 2008 1:10 pm
You favicon still works good!
Damien
June 19th, 2008 3:44 pm
Yes, I tested them when I saw this issue occur in the Firefox 3 Beta.
Adam
August 21st, 2008 9:49 am
Iconbuilder is a very good product. It does what you are suggesting, plus a whole lot more. However, it is $79, which if all you are doing is making a transparent favicon, is a lot of money.
A good alternative (free - but $5 donation suggested) is ICO FORMAT plugin from Telegraphics (Mac/Win).
http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/#icoformat