This has some advantages over just blindly loading one file (no HTTP request if there's no image, though browsers still all try /favicon.ico nowadays) and you get to chose where to place the icon (probably together with other images of your site).
I think by now all browsers support <link rel="shortcut icon"> but all of them still request /favicon.ico so by adding that you a) don't have to change your markup for the icon and b) you silence the error log of your web server - all in one go.
> This has some advantages over just blindly loading one file (no HTTP request if there's no image, though browsers still all try /favicon.ico nowadays) and you get to chose where to place the icon (probably together with other images of your site).
Also, browsers which aren't MSIE can use PNG, GIF (including animated) or JPEG favicons.
> I think by now all browsers support <link rel="shortcut icon">
Only rel=icon is necessary in most browser, rel="shortcut icon" is for MSIE lte 9.
