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Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by breppp on Sunday November 16, 2025 @03:21PM (#45948089)
I was sure this has been a thing for a while, either that or safari has a UI bug since forever.

I regularly get the wrong favicon in specific sites, for example ars technica favicon in reddit

Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by robotnikman on Sunday November 16, 2025 @03:23PM (#45948097)
I get the same bug in Firefox as well sometimes.
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by goodells on Sunday November 16, 2025 @04:41PM (#45948671)
I thought I was the only one! Something in the UI cache is so horribly corrupted and it has been for years on my MacBook, I just gave up hope.
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by croes on Sunday November 16, 2025 @06:40PM (#45949522)
I get the wrong for HN in mobile Chrome
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by cubefox on Monday November 17, 2025 @08:19AM (#45953294)
So a similar favicon bug exists in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. Impressive!
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by snailmailman on Sunday November 16, 2025 @06:48PM (#45949581)
My hacker news icon has been stuck as the icon for a weather site that I sometimes check. It’s been stuck that way for close to a year now, and has survived an iOS update too.

It persists across profiles and into private browsing mode.

Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by mycall on Sunday November 16, 2025 @08:25PM (#45950086)
Could site icons be connected somehow to iCloud?
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by grugagag on Sunday November 16, 2025 @08:47PM (#45950175)
To me HN has been stuck as Facebooks icon for a really long time.
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by 1718627440 on Monday November 17, 2025 @06:25AM (#45952664)
You guys have favicons? I don't have any in my tabs, but maybe I have turned that of at some point. I'm using Mozilla Firefox.
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by dewey on Monday November 17, 2025 @09:32AM (#45953896)
Firefox and Safari both have favicons in the tabs.
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by 1718627440 on Monday November 17, 2025 @11:03AM (#45954818)
Yes, I also have them in general, e.g. on about:newtab, but for HN, there isn't any shown on the tab (there is if I make a bookmark). Maybe I messed something up.
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by prodigycorp on Sunday November 16, 2025 @08:17PM (#45950046)
Safari has super long lived favicon caches too. The only way to force a rebuild is to set your system clock forward a few years.
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by garrettgarcia on Sunday November 16, 2025 @10:32PM (#45950635)
According to the Github page, you can just run `rm ~/Library/Safari/Favicon Cache/*`
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by ftchd on Sunday November 16, 2025 @11:09PM (#45950787)
yes, but time travel is cooler
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by prodigycorp on Monday November 17, 2025 @09:56AM (#45954125)
iOS
Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by throwup238 on Sunday November 16, 2025 @11:01PM (#45950748)
For me the iOS HN icon changes between the reddit and github, depending on which one I've been using the most on my phone recently. This happens on both iOS Safari and Kagi's Orion.

I thought that this was just a bug in iOS but based on the comments in this thread, it seems to be common not only across OSes but browser vendors too (I assume iOS Orion uses the same engine as Safari)

Re:Tracking users with favicons, even in incognito mode by supriyo-biswas on Monday November 17, 2025 @02:35AM (#45951573)
I have the same, the Youtube icon is the Hacker news icon, and the other way round. I have to assume this is some sort of race condition, data corruption, or something else, and it's quite widespread too given all these reports.