You have to assign the favicon yourself to the desktop shortcut (right-click the shortcut: Properties) after you have dragged the link to the desktop. You can usually find the favicon in Tools >Page Info > Media and save the icon there. Otherwise use the main domain of the website and add favicon.ico (e.g. mozilla.org/favicon.ico ) to display the favicon in a tab and save that image to a folder.

You said "Otherwise use the main domain of the website and add favicon.ico (e.g. mozilla.org/favicon.ico ) to display the favicon in a tab and save that image to a folder. " Add "favicon.ico" where?? Please explain this part as if you are talking to a newbie please. There's something missing... If you could explain step by step that would be so helpful. thank you M2328

I agree with maxine2328. I tried doing what the-edmeister said but once I got to page info, nothing worked or it wasn't showing up for me to continue. I agree that step by step is the only thing to get the icon for whatever site I've dragged to my desktop to appear instead of the "fox". THere is NO problem with dragging/dropping in IE!!!

This has failed. No problem in IE, but nada in Firefox. I guess it's not possible.

It has failed unless someone else has a suggestion! I have no idea why Mozilla has to make something as simple as associating the icon from a site to displaying it on the desktop shortcut??? Does anyone now which dll files have icons besides those that appear under "...\systen32\shell32.dll"? even plain Jane icons will be better than the fox for all shortcuts...

I used to be able to change icons from progman.exe but now I can't find it. Isn't there a way to find someone in the Firefox/Mozilla world who knows?

It's not a matter of Firefox making it simple - the Windows Operating System controls the desktop icons, so with 3rd party applications Windows automatically uses the icon for the application for the shortcut, but it is possible to change the image to whatever you want.

If you want the website image that the website uses for the URL bar as the icon for a desktop shortcut to a website:

1. Set the desktop shortcut.
2. Locate and save the image you want to use for that shortcut.
3. Then right-click that shortcut and open Properties > Shortcut in the context menu for the desktop shortcut, then use "Change Icon..." and "Browse..." your hard drive for the image that you want to use for the desktop shortcut.

As far as finding and saving the website's Favicon, see the screenshot below.

1. Locate the Icon on the Page Info > Media tab and click on it so it is highlighted, then view that image in the Media Preview window at the bottom and also verify the Dimensions as 32x32 if the image isn't a Type X-ICON Image.
2. Then use the Save As... button to save that image - name that saved image something unique, like (as an example for this forum) mozilla-favicon.ico so you can tell it apart from any other favicon.ico image you may have saved or will be saving.

If you want to use your own choice of an image, you can convert that image to a favicon.ico image here.
http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/
When you are creating a favicon.ico for use as a desktop image, make sure you select the Merge with a 32x32 desktop icon option on that page.

edited to make the process clearer

If you want the website image that the website uses for the URL bar as the icon for a desktop shortcut to a website, you need to open Properties > Shortcut in the context menu for the desktop shortcut, then use "Change Icon..." and "Browse..." your hard drive for the image that you want to use for the desktop shortcut.

WHERE is this?

There is nothing when I go to properties on the shortcut. I guess my question is...where is the CONTEXT MENU? Thanks

But this method does not supply the website's favicon. Using that method just gets you to a collection of generic Windows icons. We are looking for a way to replace the Firefox images with the actual images of the website's we visit. They're called "favicons". The Firefox swirly tail around the globe is the Firefox favicon.