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Explicitly specifying no favicon #13094

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Explicitly specifying no favicon#13094
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addition/proposalNew features or enhancementsneeds implementer interestMoving the issue forward requires implementers to express interest

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@SaekiTominaga
SaekiTominaga
opened on Oct 19, 2026

What is the issue with the HTML Standard?

On websites that don't provide a favicon, the browser automatically attempts to access /favicon.ico, resulting in unnecessary network traffic and 404 responses.

A workaround for this issue is to use a data scheme. e.g. <link rel="icon" href="data:,">

However, I think it would be better if there were a standardized method defined in the HTML specification.

For example...

<link rel="icon">
<link rel="icon" type="none">
<link rel="icon" other-attribute="...">

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  1. zcorpan
    added
    addition/proposalNew features or enhancements
    needs implementer interestMoving the issue forward requires implementers to express interest
    on Oct 19, 2026

  2. zcorpan commented on Oct 19, 2026

    @zcorpan
    zcorpan
    on Oct 19, 2026
    Member

    <link rel="icon"> without href doesn't suppress the /favicon.ico request in Firefox Nightly 160, Chrome Canary 158, or Safari TP 254; href="data:," does. The spec's "in the absence of a link with the icon keyword" suggests the hrefless one should too.

    How about updating the spec to match browsers, and bless data:, as the standardized method?

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