1917990 - Internet Shortcuts (.url files) have a larger file size than other browsers

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect, P3)

Description

[Blake]

Steps to reproduce:

Dragging the padlock onto the desktop creates a shortcut with a file size 4.5x greater than Chrome or Edge.

Comment 1

[Blake]

Attachment: Firefox.png

Comment 2

[Blake]

Attachment: Chrome.png

Comment 3

[Blake]

Attachment: Edge.png

Comment 4

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Please move if there's a better component for this.

Comment 5

[Max Christian Pohle [:/dev/max]]

Hi Blake! Thanks for the bug report. I would not necessarily describe the file size as "large" with its few bytes (does it cause you any trouble?). But it was really interesting for me to learn about the reason: The different file sizes come from Firefox storing an icon along with the URL in the created .url-file, which makes Firefox url file bigger then others.

But the reason for that is amazing! Its actually a feature implemented 23 years ago and in Bug 110894. It turns out that this icon is the "favicon" of the linked website! That means that with all your other browsers your shortcuts always look the same. Only Firefox allows you to create shortcuts with the appropriate icons associated with the websites they link to.

However if you really want to or must, visit about:settings (on your own risk) and toggle the browser.shell.shortcutFavicons setting to false, because it deactivates this feature.

I am going to close this issue, but if you would like to share your use case for smaller .url files with me I would be interested to learn about it.