Yeah, it is very important to consider how dependant you are on third parties. At the very least the more dependence the more power they have over you. But also how screwed you are if they just go under.

• If you use SaaS they can interrupt your use at any time and you can only react (for example demanding a reversal or lawsuits).
• If you host closed source software they can’t interrupt service on an existing contract but can legally require you to stop using it if they don’t renew the contract. (And if the company goes under you can likely get away with using the software as long as it doesn’t need code fixes.)
• If the software is open source you can continue using the software indefinitely including making code fixes. (Maintenance may be expensive as it is now your problem but that can be costed and an exit plan made if required.)

Sort of…

You can just hope that /favicon.ico works. But 1. it often doesn’t and 2. it is often of low quality.

To find a favicon on a modern site you need to load the HTML and check Link headers and <link rel=icon> elements. However you likely can’t do this client-side for most sites because of CORS. So you need some server (at the very least to strip CORS). That lets you get the URL but 1. you probably don’t want to have connections to external domains for user privacy and 2. some domains will have hot-link protection so you need to fetch the image via your server. You will also want to consider different image formats and sizes to serve the right image to the right client. On top of all of this the site may be using some sort of bot protection which you will have to fight. Google is almost always whitelisted. The site may also have temporary outages so having a cache would be nice, especially if that is almost always populated before you even know the domain exists.

At the end of the day you do want some sort of API. And while it isn’t complex it isn’t trivial. So it is nice to just let Google handle it. (Other than tracking risks, but you could proxy Google’s API.)

Off topic. But I can’t help but rate the trash cans.

• 1995: Excellent can. Obviously not that many pixels to work with but it is clear, legible and clean.
• 1998: I mean its fine, but a bit of a downgrade. Why so much black? Especially that top rim that apparently was painted black. The shading on the arrows also just hurts legibility, why do 2D arrows have shading anyways?
• 2000: Nope. The only good thing about it is that it is throwing away Windows. The shading is to simple arrows are strange colours and lacks a sense of depth.
• 2001: I don’t love the theme but the execution is great. It looks clean shiny and bright. The only real weird thing is the bag inside, it is a bit strangely round despite seemingly not going over the edge.
• 2006: This is a nice refinement of the last one. Cleaner look, skip the bag, more realistic trash. This is the second best executed after 1995.
• 2015: This one is bland and lacks contrast and detail. The arrows are also oddly stubby for some reason. It’s not bad, but also not good.

This article really keeps getting better and better.

• ‘Unparalleled’ snake antivenom made from man bitten 200 times
• In total, Mr Friede has endured more than 200 bites and more than 700 injections of venom he prepared from some of the world’s deadliest snakes
• He initially wanted to build up his immunity to protect himself when handling snakes, documenting his exploits on YouTube.
• he had “completely screwed up” early on when two cobra bites in quick succession left him in a coma
• I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to lose a finger. I didn’t want to miss work
• It just became a lifestyle