For those of you who like to put bookmarks on the Bookmarks Bar in Google Chrome but hate that a few bookmarks or any bookmarklet doesn't have a favicon, this tip is for you. Here's how to change the favicon to any bookmark and any bookmarklet in Google Chrome.

For this example, I'll be working with changing the favicon for the Readability bookmarklet.

Note: Make sure Google Chrome is closed.

1. Download SQLite Database Browser [sourceforge.net] and extract it.

2. Open it and go to FileOpen, or click on the open folder icon on the toolbar.

3. Navigate to your Google Chrome application directory:

In Windows XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

In Windows Vista/7
C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

Note: Change "YOUR USER NAME" to your real user name.

4. Open the "History" file

5. Click on "Browse Data," and in the "Table" drop down menu, select "urls."

This will show your entire history, with the url, the title, how many times you've visited it, etc. But what we're most interested in is the last column, "favicon_id."

6. Next to the "Table" drop down is a magnifying glass. Click it. From here, you'll be able to find exactly the site you want to extract the favicon from. Once you've found the correct record, note the value in the "favicon_id" column. Make sure it isn't 0 because then it won't work. For example, the default Google favicon's value is "129."

For the Readability bookmarklet, I'll do a url search, change the equals sign to "contains," and type in arc90. Once I find the Readability site, I click on it. It takes me directly to its record. For me, the "favicon_id" is 1551.

Note: If you don't find the site you're looking for, you've most likely have not visited the site recently, and thus it's not in your History file. Close SQLite, open Google Chrome, and visit the sites you want to extract the favicon from, then fire up SQLite again.

7. With the "favicon_id" value in hand, we'll get to the tricky part. Find a random record, like a Google search result or something. Double click the value under the "title" column. The url will pop up. Clear it and paste the javascript code for the bookmarklet. Click "Apply Changes."

8. Do the same thing with the "favicon_id." Double click it, clear it, and enter the value. In this case, it's 1551.

9. That's it. Now save the database, fire up Google Chrome, and behold the new favicon!

I know this is a lot of steps and can get quite complicated, but trust me, it works. If you have any questions, let me know!

Credit: Tech-Recipes [www.tech-recipes.com]