place favicon.ico into the root

[tensor]

Some browsers query for favicon.ico regardless of the <link> element. Placing favicon.ico will reduce the amount of "not found" error messages in apache error log.

[Lazlo]

The favicon is template specific, so it should stay in the skin folder. But you can add a redirect in the root .htaccess from /favicon.ico to the favicon in the skin folder.

[tensor]

One notorious browser is Opera. All "normal" browsers will take the icon from the <link> element. And Opera too, I think, will pick up the icon from the <link> element, as soon as it sees it. I belive it queries blindly for /favicon.ico before it sees (parses) the favicon.ico in the <link>.

A default .htcaccess may include a redirect to the default skin.

[tensor]

Something like this

=== .htaccess
==================================================================
--- .htaccess   (revision 1974)
+++ .htaccess   (local)
@@ -19,5 +19,9 @@
   Deny from all
 </FilesMatch>
 
+<IfModule mod_alias.c>
+  Redirect /favicon.ico /skins/default/images/favicon.ico
+</IfModule>
+
 Order deny,allow
 Allow from all

}}

[alec]

Applied in [e3f42750].

[tensor]

There were some complaints about this change producing 500 Internal Server Error.
The problem is that Apache 2.0 and lower requires the full URI with scheme in the second argument to the Redirect directive.

Something like this should work even in Apache 1.3

=== .htaccess
==================================================================
--- .htaccess   (revision 2063)
+++ .htaccess   (local)
@@ -23,8 +23,10 @@
   Deny from all
 </FilesMatch>
 
-<IfModule mod_alias.c>
-  Redirect /favicon.ico /skins/default/images/favicon.ico
+# prevent browsers ignoring <link rel="icon" ... /> to spam the error log
+<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
+RewriteEngine On
+RewriteRule ^favicon.ico$ skins/default/images/favicon.ico
 </IfModule>
 
 Order deny,allow

[alec]

Fixed in [34942eb1].