The best way to change favicon in browser [duplicate]

Question

I have a web application that's branded according to the user that's currently logged in. I'd like to change the favicon of the page to be the logo of the private label, but I'm unable to find any code or any examples of how to do this. Has anybody successfully done this before?

I'm picturing having a dozen icons in a folder, and the reference to which favicon.ico file to use is just generated dynamically along with the HTML page. Thoughts?

Answer 1

Why not?

var link = document.querySelector("link[rel~='icon']");
if (!link) {
    link = document.createElement('link');
    link.rel = 'icon';
    document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(link);
}
link.href = 'https://stackoverflow.com/favicon.ico';

Answer 2

Here’s some code that works in Firefox, Opera, and Chrome (unlike every other answer posted here). Here is a different demo of code that works in IE11 too. The following example might not work in Safari or Internet Explorer.

/*!
 * Dynamically changing favicons with JavaScript
 * Works in all A-grade browsers except Safari and Internet Explorer
 * Demo: http://mathiasbynens.be/demo/dynamic-favicons
 */

// HTML5™, baby! http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/document-head
document.head = document.head || document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];

function changeFavicon(src) {
 var link = document.createElement('link'),
     oldLink = document.getElementById('dynamic-favicon');
 link.id = 'dynamic-favicon';
 link.rel = 'shortcut icon';
 link.href = src;
 if (oldLink) {
  document.head.removeChild(oldLink);
 }
 document.head.appendChild(link);
}

You would then use it as follows:

var btn = document.getElementsByTagName('button')[0];
btn.onclick = function() {
 changeFavicon('http://www.google.com/favicon.ico');
};

Fork away or view a demo.