SVG Favicons Coming Soon and Other News

We have known for awhile that you can use SVG files as favicons but it can take time to update the site to include a how to use them and the links to the SVG files, but a new tutorial on how to add SVG files as favicons is coming soon. In the mean time we have started testing SVG downloads on the Animal section of Free Favicons the ability to download the original SVG file that the favicon PNG’s were created from. For example on one of the most popular animal favicons, the Paw Print, you will notice a new button that allows you to download the SVG file to use as a favicon as well as the original zip file download to grab the PNG and ICO package. You might want to grab both so you can provide options for those visitors that cannot see SVG favicons yet.

Look for the tutorial on how to use a SVG as a favicon soon and many more SVG downloads available soon.

Many thanks to PermaClipart for their help and useful API to connect our favicon PNG/ICO packages with the original SVG files they were created from.

In other news the main favicon generator has a new hcaptcha field added to it. We were having a number of bots constantly hitting the favicon generator form and decided it was time to do something about it. We are hopeful this will help prevent/slow down the bots so we don’t need to take any other measures.

Changes

There has been a long list of new things going on here at FreeFavicon and thought we would share some of the highlights.

New Hosting

It was not that long ago that we moved from Hostgator.com to a new host, but we have moved again. This time to a DigitalOcean server. On top of DigitalOcean we are also using ServerPilot to manage the account. Really liking the server stack that ServerPilot installs. You can learn more on their website, but we find the site is very quick to respond and fast to download files. Hopefully you notice the speed improvement. I highly recommend DigitalOcean and ServerPilot if you are looking for a new host for your website.

SSL

Along with new hosting we thought it was also a good time to start to secure things around here. Thanks to ServerPilot we have also turned on SSL so your browsing and creating of favicons is now secure.

Facebook Page

We had resisted creating a Facebook page all these years, but with the move to SSL and the URL changing all the likes we had previously on the Like button on the sidebar are gone, so we decided it was time to bite the bullet and start over with a new Facebook page and box.

Latest Icons

Want to know what new icons we have added to the site? We have moved the latest icons section from the sidebar to a new page. All those little icons on the sidebar was just slowing loading down across the whole site, not to mention those little icons were hard to see, so creating a whole new page just for the latest icons helps fix a few problems all at once. So go check out the latest icons that we have added.

Think that is all for now. Hopefully you notice some speed improvement on the site and thanks for visiting and using FreeFavicon!

New Icon Size Added


Well it is now 2016 and to keep up with changes in favicon and icons FreeFavicon.com has made a few changes around the site. First up, to start off the New Year the top icons list has been reset to zero! That means if visit the FreeFavicons page it might look pretty bare for awhile. It will not take long to fill up again.

Second if you use WordPress you might now have a feature called a Site Icon. It is not available on all themes available yet but it is becoming more popular. Thankfully with a small tweak to our generation code for the downloadable icons we have included a 512 pixel size icon on all newly generated icons for download. That is the preferred size for a WordPress site icon so you can easily download an icon you can use for your WordPress website.

Unfortunately not all the previously created icons will have the new icon size but over 2016 we will be looking at adding the new size into the older icons. Not all will get the new size but if there is an icon you really want us to create a WordPress site icon size for let us know and we will look into getting it made.

The icon creators and generator are a little more difficult to add the new size to but in the next little while the new size will hopefully be added as well.

Spring Cleaning!

It was time to do some spring cleaning around here at Free Favicon and finally clean up some of the Objects folder that was starting to get out of control.

As a result there are now FIVE new categories of favicons to look through but it does make the Objects category more manageable plus it was an opportunity to add a huge bunches of new favicons to the site. The new categories are:

  • Icons – I know it seems redundant to have a category called icons but once you look through them you will see why, maybe.
  • Plants and Flowers – The number of plants and flowers was growing out of control in Objects so they needed their own section. See what I did there, growing…haha.
  • Signs – Signs make great favicons and there were a lot of signs I have have been seeing lately that I just did not create favicons from because it would just be too many in the Objects category. Now with their own section I went to town and made a whole bunch.
  • Smilies – I was not sure to call this section Smilies or Emoticons. Always fun to use as a favicon.
  • Symbols – This category was tough to create. Some of the most popular favicons in Objects ended up getting moved here like the Yin Yang symbols but they definitely belong here more than in objects.

In other news it was a long time coming but I finally made it possible to preview the favicon when you visit the detailed listing for each favicon. There might still be some categories that default to the Free Favicon favicon but most favicon details pages should load the actual favicon on the tab bar now.

Also on the favicon details pages there is now the option to add comments! The Disqus commenting has been added to the favicon details pages so if you download a favicon and use it and what to show of your website you can, or if you just love a certain favicon and want to express yourself you can.

If you have any suggestions for new categories or are looking for a specific favicon feel free to leave a comment here and I will see what I can do.

FreeFavicon.com Has Moved!

Well after years and years of hosting on Hostgator.com FreeFavicon.com has decided to step things up a bit and move on to a new host. Things were starting to get crowded over at Hostgator and we needed some more room. Not to mention we did not think the server was going to hold up to some of the plans we have ahead.

There could still be a few things out of place but for the most part the move went smoothly and we are happy to have made the move.

Looking forward to continuing offering the best favicon and icon creation website on the Internet.