Favicon

What's with the new elongated favicon's (check paypal)
So they don't have to be square anymore or do I have to figure out the magic by digging there code? If they can be rectangles now how to generate?

I really don't know how this works. However, I have a guess:
I think this is based on an https (secure) site. It isn't actually something done by paypal but rather just a notification of the security certificate (if you click on it more info pops up), and this is just something that firefox does. (What browser are you using?)
If you ignore the green around it, the icon itself still is the same size.

Daniel, you're basically right. I noticed this a couple of weeks ago and found this article explained the feature well.