Why does the Favicon by RealFaviconGenerator WordPress plugin need to be activated all the time?

Here is how to use the Favicon by RealFaviconGenerator WordPress plugin:

• Install and activate the plugin
• Go to Appearance > Favicon
• Design and setup the favicon. Well done!
• Forget about it

Now, it is tempting to say "Hey, the mission of the plugin is completed. Let's deactivate it". Bad move. The plugin needs to be active all the time.

Granted: most of the work is done at creation time, when the favicon is setup. However, the plugin has something to do every time to fulfill its purpose: it must inject special HTML markups in all pages served by WordPress. This is done dynamically. In other words, each time a visitor views a page of your site, Favicon by RealFaviconGenerator is triggered and sends him the favicon markups.

"Wait, doesn't it slow down my site?" you are wondering. Don't worry, the plugin was designed to be extremely lightweight and does not affect the performance of WordPress.

If you ever install a favicon manually in WordPress, you may have edited a file called header.php. So you may wonder why the plugin does not behave in a similar fashion. Modifying header.php is actually a bad practice. The major issue is a theme switch. Because header.php comes from the current theme, it is changed whenever you change or update your theme. This is when things start to be messy and you wish your plugins had a better, modular design.

We aim at providing the best experience for favicon on WordPress. If you have questions, please leave us a comment.