There seems to be a problem with the way favicons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon) are currently used.

1. As Wikipedia notes, the historical way of checking /favicon.ico, a reserved location, violates the architecture of the web. In more practical terms, it forces every site and page associated with a hostname to have the same favicon.
2. The new standards-compliant way of <link rel="icon" href="/whatever"> is only good for (X)HTML files. It is of no use for assigning icons to be associated with images or plain text files.
3. As a consequence, if an image or plain text file is loaded, it will create a bogus request for /favicon.ico, even if the site really has a favicon that is elsewhere.

The ideal way seems to be to send an HTTP header pointing to the favicon URL associated with the resource. "X-Favicon: /favicon.ico".

I did a quick search for favicon "http header" to see who had come up with this idea before me and why it wasn't used. I found nothing, no instances of this solution being proposed. I'm stunned. Is this so revolutionary not to have occurred to anyone?

4-ch, what do you think?