Comment 29 for bug 407621

fishor, Mozilla has restored the icons in Firefox's Bookmarks menu (bug 408361).

Taylor L-Wren, it is true that icons are more recognizable than text, but only for a few menu items. Unfortunately, those items are almost always interspersed with other menu items that have no possible obvious icons, so the gaps look distracting and ugly. (Microsoft in particular has been experimenting for years with different styles to try and prevent the gaps from looking distracting and ugly, with little success. Gnome and KDE theme developers haven't really even tried.) So, Gnome is now shifting to a model where dynamic objects -- applications, bookmarks, documents, folders, user accounts, wireless networks, and so on -- have icons by default, while all other items do not. There is a fairly high, though by no means perfect, correlation between these classes of menu item and the menu items that, considered alone, would benefit from an icon. Importantly for developers, it's a fairly easy guideline to follow. And importantly for users, the items representing dynamic objects are almost always clustered together in menu sections, avoiding the problem with ugly gaps.

Sandro Mani, applications are an example of the type of object that should have an icon when in a menu, so bug 387796 is quite appropriate.