Your opinion on the .webp format

[brisray]

Gopher, wow, there's nostalgia for you.

An interesting thought, images spying on you? 1 x 1 transparent images are used to count how many people open an email link - https://www.nutshell.com/blog/email-tracking-pixels-101-how-do-tracking-pixels-work

Gans is absolutely right, I sometimes see pages where someone forgot or don't know about image optimization and put 3Mb images or more on them. And about scripts, sometimes they are on every page instead of the ones that need them. Things like this are why I'm trying to move away from Google Analytics and move to reading the server log files directly. There's some stats I'll lose, there's some information not passed beween computers in the handshaking process, but nothing I can't live without.

Am I spying on people? Sort of, but I'm interested in seeing people's behavior on my sites to improve them, and not interested in where else they go.

Faster and smaller is how the web has evolved. I thought gifs, jpgs, and pngs were as good as images were going to get but with webp and the high efficiency (HEIC) formats I'm looking forward to what comes next. Hopefully it won't be just to make room for even more advertising and tracking.

[TheFrugalGamer]

Back in the day, exactly the same arguments were used about GIFs when big bad Compuserve who were if not the absolute rulers of what was happening on the internet, very close to it and invented the format. The intention was to release it for free, but if you created them you were supposed to pay for licenses because they used LWZ compression technology.

To be honest, this is exactly why I started this topic! I also remember these sorts of arguments, so when I see similar talks cropping up in the modern day, I try to stop and think about it a little bit before drawing conclusions. And it's really interesting to see everyone's arguments for and against--I also think Gans is right about how useless compression seems when everyone seems to ignore optimization anyway.

Personally I haven't used any on my site yet because I just can't be bothered to move to a new format. I'm pretty sure the tools I use support it, but I'm used to working with PNG and JPEG anyway, and I like that my images are backwards compatible for folks who want to browser using old browsers.

[RodFireProductions]

I use webp files here and there. I use them for optimization and file size reasons. I can usually get my files sizes smaller without having to make them too pixelated via converting them into webps than I can with other formats. I have ffmpeg installed on my computer so I just quickly convert things when I need to.

They have previews on Windows and I actually don't mind them opening in my browser by default. The art programs I use don't support webp but I don't really mind.

I'm actually quite surprised by the amount of discontent people here seem to have towards them. Makes me wonder if I need to change my adoptables from webps to pngs.

[Icey!]

Reminds me of when I was a video editor.

Look up image on the all mighty search engine > See a good result > Attempt to download it > Receive a .webp > Go back to the all mighty search engine and check for a different image > See another good result > Attempt to download > Get a .jpeg > Go back to the all mighty search engine and check for a different image this time with a transparency filter on > See another ANOTHER good result > Get a .webp(1) > Give up.

[springhand]

I'm actually quite surprised by the amount of discontent people here seem to have towards them. Makes me wonder if I need to change my adoptables from webps to pngs.

^ seconding this! Though in my case it's more because I never paid attention to things like backwards compatibility and what Google can possibly do with widespread adoption of a format.

TLDR: WEBP suits what I need so I use it.

I tend to make images on my phone and then upload them onto cohost, and I'm not paying the subscription, so I try to be mindful with the image sizes. In particular, I take shots of my scribbles and sketches - which, when captured by Iphones, result in images with a lot of details and a dimension of ~2000 x 3000 px. And it's really fun to see the grains on the A4 copy paper which normally I don't even notice, but it's overkill if all I want is for people to see this silly drawing I made. So I use tinypng and then another website to scale the image down to its original size and convert it to WEBP.

It's a hassle, and I end up with several copies of the same image in my camera roll by the end of the process. Plus, it's inconvenient if I want to edit the image AFTER the whole shebang - gotta start from the original file and go through the process all over again.

I'd be happy if people can offer some tips on this.

[close]

ANYWAY, back to the topic, my use case is very specific, so it probably doesn't contribute much to the discussion. After reading this topic, I'd have to look up how Google can put spies in images (as you can see I don't exactly flaunt a great technical knowledge XD) before I start worrying. But it's true that how WEBP can balance image size and picture quality compared to JPEG and PNG seems pretty amazing to me. So my stance for now is basically that if WEBP is genuinely good & the hostility's more because of Google than anything, I'll keep using it.

[TheFrugalGamer]

^ seconding this! Though in my case it's more because I never paid attention to things like backwards compatibility and what Google can possibly do with widespread adoption of a format.

ANYWAY, back to the topic, my use case is very specific, so it probably doesn't contribute much to the discussion....

Actually, I'm always interested in the specific use cases, because those are the ones you have to keep in mind when evaluating how and why certain file formats are so widespread. If I were building a web app, I'd want to know the small cases specifically, because that goes into whether or not I'll want to support them.

Your anecdote brings up an interesting point, though--it seems you use them mainly because you're a heavy mobile user (at least when it comes to those images), and in a world where many only see the web via their phones, it's worth considering the .webp format due to its better compression. It also reminds me that I really need to go through and optimize the images on my pages, since they're pretty huge regardless of which format they're in 

[Y2KStardust]

A bit late, I know, but I saw this thread and *had* to comment: I have a massive vendetta against .webp!!! They don't show up when copy-pasting like any other format does - I'm sure it's for privacy and to be fair, it DOES make sense in some scenarios I'm sure.
BUT.
When I see a cool merch thing or a silly meme and want to share it with my friends - via discord especially, since that program HATES .webp - I literally grab the snipping tool out of spite if I get a .webp >:( A very silly vendetta to have, but I can't help it XD

[kurohaato]

I dislike it for one very particular reason: my computer wants to open webp files in my browser instead of in windows' default photo program. It's super annoying, especially if I need to do some basic edits to it like if I'm cropping it for a profile picture.

[Skykristal]

honestly I never really looked much into this format or used it myself. But I much prefer the old files.
I had saved a .webp in the past, not realizing it was that and not some regular jpeg or png and had issues opening it with specific programs. I had to convert it into a different format which is super annoying.
Also, idk if it was because of the general file size or someone's page but I once stumbled across a site full of webp animations and could barely do anything because of how laggy and load heavy it was. I haven't experienced that with normal images, but animations seem to have some issues. I much prefer to view an animation as either a gif, or a video anyway. I am familiar with those types and know what it is about. idk webp is kind of a weird format to use. The only other "more unusual" (web-)format I still like is svg. It helps a lot with size and speed.

[TheEzriGamer26]

WebP, oh don't even get me started on that infuriating image format! It's nothing but a source of frustration and annoyance. First and foremost, let's talk about compatibility. Sure, it may have some advantages in terms of file size and compression, but the fact that it's not widely supported across all browsers and platforms is a major headache. I mean, what's the point of having a supposedly "better" image format if you can't even view it properly on most devices?

[yungwake0]

the fact that it's not widely supported across all browsers and platforms is a major headache.

Neocities free plan doesn't support WebP, that alone is enough for me not to use WebP

I also find the format annoying in general though, as like others have said, there's still a lot that doesn't support it. The lack of thumbnails is annoying too, my computer just shows the Microsoft Edge icon for all of them.

Personally when I see a WebP I just copy/paste it into Paint.net and save it as a normal png

[Icey!]

Neocities free plan doesn't support WebP, that alone is enough for me not to use WebP

Are you sure? I am on the free plan and I am able to upload .webp images. I'm assuming it's because there is no icon on the dashboard?

[div]

I think some of the takes in this post are a little absurd.

I understand that you don't like having webp files in your local collection of images, but why don't you learn to convert them? You could write a python script that found every webp in a directory and convert it to png if you want to. If you're serious about archival, you should learn to maintain things in a batch way like this.

I think that before you jump to conspiracies about image formats and the people that started them you should consider the costs of running a large site like Tumblr. Every image that isn't as optimized for loading on the web as possible adds up, so they have to figure out solutions to serve all that content. Especially when your website is serving image after image after image after image, you want the page weight to be as small as possible so that users can load things asap.

You're basically asking people to use non-web optimized formats on their webservers because you're ignorant and unable to optimize them for your local storage.

If you want to enumerate the things that are shitty about Google, I would start with things that are actually relevant and rational.

... I'm not trying to be mean in this post. I just feel like you shouldn't be making others feel guilty for how they have structured their websites based on your ranting whims.

[Melooon]

If you want to enumerate the things that are shitty about Google, I would start with things that are actually relevant and rational

I think you're simultaneously completely correct and also completely missing the point

This forum is dedicated to "web revival" enthusiasts - the web revival is a movement/philosophy that simply asks "What if the web was designed for art and people, instead of companies."

So you are correct that webp exists to suit the goals and values of companies like Tumblr/Yahoo or Google; it allows them to save on costs and deliver bigger sites to users faster - however, the point of this thread is to see how people actually feel about webp. In this context, it's completely correct and rational for people to share their opinion, even if it's not always a technically informed opinion.

Within the web revival, most people don't actually like companies like Google, so why would they care if Google can save money by using webp?

The reality of course is that companies will continue to exist, and the web cannot and prob should not universally follow web revival ideals (That would be chaos ) - however that doesn't diminish the value of having a creative counterpoint, and I think that's the view that many people are expressing here.

I'm not trying to be mean in this post. I just feel like you shouldn't be making others feel guilty

In general, if you're trying not to be mean, it's best not to call people irrelevant and irrational when they are expressing an opinion; particularly when you're new to the discussion. As for feeling guilty - no one is asking you to feel guilty here (I don't think) - they are sharing their opinion - if you feel guilty while reading someone's opinion (about anything)... that's on you! You might need to do some self-reflection to figure out where that guilt is coming from.

[yungwake0]

Are you sure? I am on the free plan and I am able to upload .webp images. I'm assuming it's because there is no icon on the dashboard?

I actually looked into it some more and it's most likely just a glitch on my end, since the neocities official website says they support WebP. Or maybe it was actually a WebM and I just got confused