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Flood Microsoft!

Members of the ISP-Tech list discuss a flaw in recent versions of Internet Explorer that may be flooding your site's log file with false 404 "File Not Found" errors.

[May 15, 2000]

On the ISP-Tech list in May, GS asked why his access log was being flooded by strange errors:

"For a long time I have not checked the log files. Today I noticed a lot of access to a file called favicon.ico in various subdirectories. There is no such file on our server, nor did I find any reference to it in our pages, and the request does not contain the address of the referer page (which is turned on so there should be one if the browser supplied it). What is this?"

[DC replied] "A favicon (favorites icon) is an a little image that Internet Explorer version 5x places next to a bookmark when a web site supplies one. Unfortunately, if you don't have one available, the requests will flood your error log."

[G suggested flooding Microsoft] "That file, if you had it, would allow you to include an icon with your site listing that would be displayed when someone bookmarked a page on your site. If you don't want to create one, try this:

RedirectMatch permanent .*/favicon\.ico http://www.microsoft.com/favicon.ico/requests/are/flooding/my/error/log

[DS noted] "If the file isn't present on your website, Internet Explored will use its own default icon."

[BS suggested] "See the Website www.favicon.com."

[KH suggested reading a more stinging complaint] "http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Design/Images/Favicon/"

[JM also liked the wdvl.com article and added] "Its a stupid Miscrosloth IE thing."

GS read the articles and replied:

"Thanks! So what are the specs of this icon? How can I create one?"

[DC had a simple answer to that] "Post 'em in your site's directory, same as your pages/images."

 —End