For the updated favicon choice: I would suggest using https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OOjs_UI_icon_academic-progressive.svg , which comes with a blue icon that is visible both in dark theme and light theme. Its icon license is CC0-1.0, means that we can directly use it without any copyright concerns.
Problems
I noticed the aging code around the handling of favicon in the theme. To be more concrete:
The
QUERY_STRINGhere is suspicious. Those two icons also never existed anywhere._includes/head/custom/htmlmentionedmsapplication-*<meta>tags, which I believe are deprecated./images/manifest.jsonmentions a lot of icons that do not exist at all._includes/head/custom.htmllinked tosafari-pinned-tab.svg, which is not the same as our expected favicon.favicon.icois mostly black, which is invisible when dark theme is enabled.Possible Solutions
I found the valuable blog article https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/how-to-favicon-in-2021-six-files-that-fit-most-needs , which should describe the best practice in handling favicon.
For the updated favicon choice: I would suggest using https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OOjs_UI_icon_academic-progressive.svg , which comes with a blue icon that is visible both in dark theme and light theme. Its icon license is
CC0-1.0, means that we can directly use it without any copyright concerns.