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What's happened to the favicon in Safari 8?

What's happened to the favicon in Safari 8?.... I have a lot of tabs open and it was easy to navigate to the ones you wanted because they were easily recognisable... now they're all grey text; couldn't see anything in preferences.

Posted on Oct 16, 2014 7:29 PM

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28 replies

Oct 17, 2014 10:15 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

I have done as you suggested, relaunched Safari (no luck) and then restarted the computer to make sure, nothing seems to have changed I'm afraid.


Another thing about the favicons is that it allowed you to have loads and loads of tabs open and be instantly recognisable as the tab width would shrink down. Now that has seemed to have stopped as well and you have to use you mouse to horizontally scroll a la iPad style. In essence you're having to do two things (to get to a tab off screen) when previously you only had to do one. (all 'shrunk' tabs visible)... very un-Apple like.

Oct 17, 2014 3:34 PM in response to media_lush

"Favicons" (bookmark favorite Icons) are also now missing from the bookmark sidebar menu. From what limited information I have found it is a deliberate "feature" to bring the "flat/colorless/iOS 8" look to Yosemite/Safari. Apple, please bring back our "Favicons", it makes browsing my bookmarks in the sidebar much easier! Having them back in the browser tabs would be nice also, as "Media_L." mentioned.

Oct 17, 2014 5:14 PM in response to OldWiseOne

concur that a lot of people are annoyed to the changes to the new Safari judging the fanboy sites; what I don't understand is how anyone in Apple thought removing favicons was a good idea .... you only have to look at the pic* below to see how much easier it is to navigate when favicons are viewable... I've never had to squint to use a browser before.....there is an aesthetic too far.


Unless, of course, this is a glitch.


Is there a terminal command to bring them back?



* I attempted to load the pic and whilst it loads the "insert image" button doesn't.... don't know if this just my Safari glitch or general.... could someone reply with a small screen grab to confirm.

Oct 18, 2014 6:24 PM in response to media_lush

I have gone back to using Firefox.

While it has some problems (saving images) of its own, at least I can see all the favicons in my bookmarks.

Nov 1, 2014 9:55 AM in response to media_lush

This is really crazy. This grey flat noncolor approach is design driven, but definitely not making user's live better.

I can't believe this can be sent to world as a final version. Did somebody try to use this before ?

Thousands of complains around a world. Apple are you reading this ?

Current tab bar is not usable at all !

OK we don't have color icons in finder now. It looks unified, BUT it is not better for orientation.

And, to replace favicons in browser with just a text, this is nightmare 😠

Nov 15, 2014 7:32 AM in response to media_lush

It's time for someone to come up with a Favicon extension for Safari. I really miss not having them in the Bookmarks Sidebar like it is on Firefox. I can find what bookmark I want quickly by looking for the favicon instead of having to read each bookmark/description. Surely this can be done since Safari shows the little "open book" icon for bookmarks, it should be a matter of switching out that icon for a favicon. Safari 8 is a very good and blazing fast web browser now, the only thing slowing me down is having to read all the darn bookmarks to find the one I want instead of looking for a familiar icon.

Dec 24, 2014 7:56 AM in response to media_lush

Apple has decided that their simplistic art-school level of design is more important than the human interface guidelines that made the Mac the success it once was. iOS rules the roost, and the Macintosh is a far less profitable adjunct to the iOS part of their business. Apple is saying it is better to make Macs dumbed down so that iOS users might buy them, than to let them be the capable and elegant machines they once were, and keep the faithful who stuck with the Mac through all the dark days of System 7 - OS X10.3, when we who bought Macs kept a struggling company alive. (I even bought Newtons and eMates, printers and cameras from them to help as best I could!)


Favicons are gone and it is deliberate. Glims no longer works with Safari 8 and may not be updated, so you can't add them to tabs that way. Your only hope is to bombard this page:


http://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html


with lots of feedback. I would like to see favicons in the address bar and the bookmarks sidebar, but I won't fuss if I don't get them The biggest problem is not having them in the Favorites bar, where a favicon alone takes up little space and is far quicker to identify than reading low contrast grey on grey text. This alone is enough to keep many users with Firefox, Chrome or Chromium, rather than using Safari. If Apple really prefers to make the Mac more awkward to use, but more consistent in minimalist appearance with iOS, I have to wonder why. Who is more important to you, Apple? The users who buy your products, or the egoists on the design teams?

What's happened to the favicon in Safari 8?

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