WebP has been around for a while now, offering better compression and performance over JPEG and PNG. So why haven't more apps fully adopted it yet? Are there hidden compatibility issues, performance downsides, or just inertia in the industry? Curious to hear if the switch to WebP has made a difference for anyone here, especially for mobile performance.
Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#2Same reason many aren't using HEIC or HEIF which are common image files from phones now. They are overlooked or aren't thought about.
Also many people forget about JPE, which is rare, but I've had problems with it, its basically a DOS format for JPEG, and alternative for JPG
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#3Because you also want to sell to customers who have older devices, which can't display WebP. People who are not computer enthusiasts can keep a machine around for a decade or more. The gains from using WebP are negligible, the downside when they break are significant.
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#4Because it's Google. Apple in particular didn't want to play nice for many years and tried to pitch HEIC support instead (or AVIF these days). WebP came out in 2010, right when the whole mobile app vs web app thing was heating up and Apple/Google were fighting for mindshare. It wasn't until 2020 that Apple added stable support for WebP.
Neither offered a big enough improvement for end-users to care.* Cloud operators did care, and Imgix and Cloudinary can automatically transform older formats to WebP or AVIF, for example: https://docs.imgix.com/en-US/getting-started/tutorials/perfo... and https://cloudinary.com/documentation/image_optimization#auto...
There are also a bunch of Wordpress extensions that can do the same, and FOSS proxies too.
* Hell, you think PNGs are bad? We still use animated GIFs and MP3s, even though both are terrible by today's efficiency standards. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#5Because you also want to sell to customers who have older devices, which can't display WebP. People who are not computer enthusiasts can keep a machine around for a decade or more. The gains from using WebP are negligible, the downside when they break are significant.
If a computer/browser is so old it can't support WebP, it probably also can't support modern HTTPS/TLS requirements. How do they even check out?
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#6Because you also want to sell to customers who have older devices, which can't display WebP. People who are not computer enthusiasts can keep a machine around for a decade or more. The gains from using WebP are negligible, the downside when they break are significant.
I would argue that the gain is more than "negligible" in some cases. I'm building an app involving storing and serving images and I'm surprised that for the same images with the same resolution/quality, WebP is often 3x-4x smaller than PNG, which translates to lower storage cost, faster serving time, and happier users. You made a good point that people with older devices wouldn't be able to use apps like mine. But for me, the gain is so significant that I might just accept that.
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#7Because you also want to sell to customers who have older devices, which can't display WebP. People who are not computer enthusiasts can keep a machine around for a decade or more. The gains from using WebP are negligible, the downside when they break are significant.
If a computer/browser is so old it can't support WebP, it probably also can't support modern HTTPS/TLS requirements. How do they even check out?
the http stack is updated as part of the app/browser, media codecs are often updated as part of the OS
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#8As a user, WebP doesn't really bring anything to me that matters. I mildly dislike it (not enough to really complain), though, because a lot of my tools still don't understand the format.
So, at least for me, it's 99% inertia.
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a computer/browser is so old it can't support WebP, it probably also can't support modern HTTPS/TLS requirements. How do they even check out?
the http stack is updated as part of the app/browser, media codecs are often updated as part of the OS
> media codecs are often updated as part of the OS
I thought that was mainly true in the Apple world. Does that apply to Windows and Linux too? (As in, I thought many browsers implement their own codecs)
Re: Ask HN: Why aren't more apps using WebP format?
#10Because you also want to sell to customers who have older devices, which can't display WebP. People who are not computer enthusiasts can keep a machine around for a decade or more. The gains from using WebP are negligible, the downside when they break are significant.
If a computer/browser is so old it can't support WebP, it probably also can't support modern HTTPS/TLS requirements. How do they even check out?
MacOS Mojave was released in 2018 and the stock Safari browser does not support WebP, even when updated.