Fixing Firefox/Iceweasel icons

I haven't updated in over a year, but I recently installed Debian 6.0 Squeeze and began messing with Linux again on my main computer. I figured I'll make this post because I just overcame a huge nuisance in Firefox/Iceweasel (I'll call it Firefox from this point on even if I am using Iceweasel since it's technically a re-branded version of Firefox due to logo trademarks that Debian does not follow).

The problem has to do with some of the default Tango icons that appear in Firefox no matter what you do to replace them. A while ago Firefox began integrating GTK theme icons into its interface, however as I have learned many of the icons Firefox uses are coming from a classic.jar file elsewhere on the system. Even if the icon themes have the proper icons.

For example if you use the excellent Faenza theme like I do, you'll soon discover that it includes  tab-new.png under actions (which is symbolically linked by tab_new.png stock_new-tab.png) but if you use the tab icon from the customize menu (because you like it there, and hate your tab button moving places with new tabs being open) you'll realize that it is not replaced. There a number of icons that are like this, including bookmark icons, go button, search icon, popup icon etc. This is stupid and brakes the fluidity of your theme, which is horrible if you seek consistency.

Here is how the broken wrong icons look. Notice the default Tango icons used instead of the theme icons? The new tab icon, the go button and the search icon.

The Fix!
You will need to go into /usr/share/firefox/chrome (replace firefox with iceweasel if using Debian, keep in mind your firefox directory might be different so search around) and find classic.jar, you then need to unzip this file somewhere, and go into /skin/classic/browser. There you will find various png files that contain these icons. I have edited Toolbar.png, Go-arrow.png, Search-glass.png and replaced the icons from Faenza, a lot of the icons used are 16x16 pixels but not all. This is the only way to change these icons as far as I can tell to reflect your theme icons. Unless someone has made a specific firefox theme for your icon set, but even that doesn't work all the time.

After your finished editing these images, you will need to create a zip file(make sure you use .zip, unless you can create .jar) and rename it to classic.jar (jar is mostly a java zip file container). Make sure to preserve the original file structure and names in the modified jar file. Backup the original classic.jar in /usr/share/firefox/chrome and place with your own version, ALSO keep a version of your custom classic.jar elsewhere, in case a system update replaces it, so you don't have to redo everything from scratch.

Here are the fixed icons.

Yes it's a pain to do it, but until this is fixed and you want your custom icons you will have to do it manually. Enjoy.