What are picons?
Picons is short for “personal icons”. They’re small, constrained images used to represent users and domains on the net, organized into databases so that the appropriate image for a given e-mail address can be found. Besides users and domains, there are picon databases for Usenet newsgroups and weather forecasts. The picons are in either monochrome XBM format or color XPM and GIF formats. For instructions on obtaining and installing the picons databases, point your Web browser at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/ftp/index.html. If you are using Debian GNU/Linux, saying `apt-get install picons.*’ will install the picons where Gnus can find them. To enable displaying picons, simply make sure that gnus-picon-databases points to the directory containing the Picons databases. The following variables offer control over where things are located.