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Is WebP really better than JPEG?

siipo.la

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Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#71

I just relaunched a website that makes extensive use of photographic collages that necessitate alpha backgrounds. They were previously shipping "retina-grade", multi-megabyte images all over, a typical page load could easily reach 25mb. I managed to refit it with ` ` tags using WEBP as well as JP2. The latter was a great deal of trouble, it appears that "the community" (notably Gatsby and Contentful) are very happy t…

What was the result of the switch, how heavy is a full page load now?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#74
post #43

Extremely subjective, personal data point: I've been running with an extension ( https://bandwidth-hero.com/ ) that compresses all images (including jpeg) and renders them in webp. I'm a typical social networks browser, so among the images I see a high majority of them don't need high quality. I'm running the extension with max compression but still keep colors: compression artifacts are clearly visible, but in my op…

How does an extension resize an image without downloading it? Can it selectively read bytes from the stream?

I suppose you could click on the provided link and find out?

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#75

Does anyone know how these compare with the HEIC format that it seems my iPhone now uses by default? Is that non-mainstream, or otherwise not fit for comparison?

I like HEIC under the hood, but it's not suitable for web as it has exactly zero browser support.

https://caniuse.com/#search=heif

I'm surprised that Safari doesn't support it.

I believe Apple released a bit of Javascript that lets you embed the animated HEIF images (I think they're called "live pictures") in your web site, but that's kind of a niche use.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does an extension resize an image without downloading it? Can it selectively read bytes from the stream?

It uses a proxy server as said on the landing page. That said, the service is shut down apparently so you have to self-host your own proxy server. That's not too useful for me so I uninstalled the extension.

I self-host my own proxy server on my VPS, so I'm hoping said server is close enough to the origin to be useful in the overall reduction of transferred bytes

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#77

I'm using Firefox and just tried to save a webp image and it tried to save as a web page. [initially, I said no.. see edit below] Edit: Looks like it was that specific website and they are doing something odd, so I retract my initial judgement.

Is that server sending the image with the correct mimetype?

Good point! I just went back and checked that specific site, and they are definitely doing something odd. I retract my previous judgement

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#78
post #66

I wonder, why nobody mentioned Patrice Bellard's BPG[1]. It is based on HEVC and can be supported in any browser via a Javascript. From his website: BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are: * High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality. * Supported by most Web b…

Relying on JavaScript just for images is a terrible idea.

That said, I do think it's a neat project and can be used if there are proper fallbacks to formats that are natively supported.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#79

Does anyone know how these compare with the HEIC format that it seems my iPhone now uses by default? Is that non-mainstream, or otherwise not fit for comparison?

I thought HEIC is apple only and not supported by any browser. Is it even supported by Safari?

HEIC/HEIF is not an Apple format. It's an MPEG format that's been around for half a decade.

Apple started supporting it in 2017. Microsoft in 2018.

You are correct, though — it's not supported by any browser.

Re: Is WebP really better than JPEG?

#80
One of the biggest barriers against adoption of these newer formats is the lack of pure java implementations for use server side.

The Java wrappers around a native binary are helpful, but for many projects not very useful and this hinders adoption.

https://github.com/haraldk/TwelveMonkeys/issues?q=is%3Aissue...

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