[wallunit]

Using SVG for favicons would be a much better approach. Otherwise we would just end up in a few years, where we are now. But SVGs are scalable and look as good when rendered as 16x16, as 64x64 as 1024x1024. Of course that won't work for photos and stuff, but you can pretty easily turn most favicons into a scalable vector graphic.

[morsch]

If the favicon turned out to be the first place where we finally get widespread SVG usage, I'd go into seizure.

[ANTSANTS]

To start, vector icons don't look as good at 16x16 or 32x32 as they do at higher resolutions. Pretty much every desktop environment that supports both large and small icons (whether with a native vector format or many scaled versions of large "master" icon) features separate, hand-edited icons for the lower resolutions, and often a completely redrawn simpler icon for the lowest (usually 16x16).

The Tango Icon Theme Guidelines state this explicitly: http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines\

[colanderman]

Unfortunately Mozilla, Microsoft, and Apple are dragging their feet on SVG support: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon#File_format_support