Begun, the format war has

Did you ever hear the tragedy of WebP The Efficient? I thought not. It’s not a story the GIF gang would tell you. It’s an image legend.

WebP was a new format of pictures, so efficient and so lightweight, it could use modern compression to influence the web pages to actually load faster…

It had such a knowledge of the user’s needs that it could even keep transparency and animations from dying.

The power of modern computing is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

It became so widespread… The only thing we had to be afraid of, was people insisting on using formats from the 90’s, which eventually, of course, they did.

Unfortunately, we didn’t teach the noobs everything we knew about compression, then the noobs killed the format by converting it to PNG and sharing that.

Ironic. We could save the web from being too slow, but not from the users.

MrPoopyButthole,

Nothing to do with users. Operating systems don’t support it in their default file managers and viewers.

MonkderZweite, (edited )

Most do. But i wouldn’t be surprised if Windows Photo Viewer didn’t. In this case, please install a sane third party alternative, like with most Windows tools.

Btw, isn’t webp opened in the browser by default?

YoBuckStopsHere,
@YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world avatar

In Chrome it does.

Thavron,
@Thavron@lemmy.ca avatar

I’ve read this a few times over the last few days, but at least the windows image viewer does I believe?

ooterness,

Irfanview for life.

WereCat,

Imageglass

LeFantome,

What operating systems?

Shikadi,

I can view webp easily on both windows and Linux, but I don’t use the default windows photo viewer because it started sucking a few years ago. I don’t even know what I use

InFerNo,

Irfanview perhaps?

Shikadi,

Nah it’s something with a nicer interface that’s windows only I think, i-view maybe

MrPoopyButthole,
@MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.world avatar

Will the real MrPoopyButthole please stand up?

timmoe85,

@MrPoopyButthole @MrPoopyButthole ouuuuweee

DirkMcCallahan,

The major software companies will decide your fate.

Thavron,
@Thavron@lemmy.ca avatar

If history is any indicator, the major porn companies will decide it.

ocassionallyaduck,

Lack of good integrated support in Windows and Mac, as well as no native way to convert from webp means it is good when it is good, but infuriating when it is bad. If you just need something to work, you don’t want to fight with converting image formats, you just want to move on.

I supported the idea of webp, still do, but it’s 100% less widely supported on legacy software, and the OS does nothing to interpret for those software packages.

Still,
@Still@programming.dev avatar

it’s a compressed image format you shouldn’t be converting between them

Thavron,
@Thavron@lemmy.ca avatar

I should be able to convert whatever I want.

cynar,

Conversion is better than useless. I was caught out by it recently. I was sent an image (for a product return). Unfortunately the upload process wouldn’t even see webp files.

Obviously, the best solution is to extend support as widely as possible as quickly as possible. As an interim we also need to be able to use those files, despite the target software not supporting them.

Shikadi,

I’m pretty sure you can open a webp in mspaint and save it as a png. If not you definitely can with paint.net

cynar,

That doesn’t help when your using an android phone at the time. It’s doable, but cumbersome.

Shikadi,

Looks like webp worked in android 4… Lossless was added in 10 so maybe that’s what doesn’t always work?

freamon,

Confession time: I didn’t realise webp was an image format - whenever searches came up with it, I assumed it was some shenanigans designed to prevent me stealing it … so I, um, took a screenshot of it,

In my defence, Windows doesn’t classify them as image files (rather as Internet Edge HTML Documents), and IrfanView32 (which you can tell is a great app 'cos its got ‘32’ in its name) doesn’t support them. I’ve since realised that GIMP and MS Paint do open them though.

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

Well, at least you now know, so that’s a few less png screenshots of photos in existence.

I remember IrfanView well, is that no longer developed? I’ve always preferred XnView which still exists and with its support for 500 image formats, ya’ll never never have a problem opening anything that has valid image data in it.

freamon,

It’s still being developed by the look of it. I think I just have to get a different version of it from the one I’ve got. It was the first app I used that let me navigate through a directory’s pictures with the arrow keys, so that’s why I’ve got a soft spot for it.

IronKrill,

IrfanView supports them via plugin.

MossyFeathers,

A lot of the complaints I’ve heard come from streamers who’ve tried to grab a picture off the internet for something only to have OBS reject it. Supposedly OBS has webp support, but in practice it seems like streamers have been having issues with it. Other than that, I think it’s just people being like, “what the fuck is this weird format and why doesn’t [random photo app] support it?”

In order for a standard to survive, it has to achieve mass appeal. There are a number of physical media formats that were objectively superior to what became the standard (DVD vs d-vhs comes to mind), however the emerging standard was simpler and easier to understand, so we used that instead.

Jase,

Dude, it’s not just OBS. I’m not a streamer. Most things do not play nicely with webp.

I am a DM and I’m constantly downloading artwork to make tokens or maps to slightly tweak to fit my purposes. Webp is the bane of my existence because no one supports it. The image viewer I use doesn’t support it. The file thumbnail gets stuck as a white square. The token maker website doesn’t support it and the program I have claims to support it but won’t load in the image. The moving webps are supposedly supported by a VTT I was considering but again they just never loaded properly or loaded as a still image. I recall sending a webp on discord and instead of displaying the image inline it just showed it as an attachment.

I don’t care about file extensions. I’ve never had an opinion over which one is my favorite. Do I like png or jpeg? Don’t care. But I hate webp because so far it has been functionally worthless to me be cause seemingly no one supports it.

Sure. Might be better quality. Might be tiny and amazing. Might be hyper efficient. But if I can’t use it after I save it, or that I have to jump through hoops to use it, then he fucks the point?

MossyFeathers,

Sorry, I think I might have come off as condescending when I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to say that the only people I’ve seen have issues with it were streamers. I failed to connect that with the fact that streamers can have a large audience; and that their viewers are typically people who are technologically savvy enough to be “tech support” for their friends and family, but not savvy enough to know that webp is technically a superior, albiet undersupported, format. As such, a negative view of webp spreads faster than a positive one, potentially impacting adoption.

I also didn’t mean to invalidate your experiences, I simply haven’t had anyone to play DnD in a while. I’ve also never tried to DM, so I hadn’t run into the issues that you’re having.

preciousjewel128,

I’m also a DM. I use foundry, which does support webp files. I can store literally 1000s of images for a fraction of space, and use that extra space for extra modules and even more content for my players.

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Lemmy converts all uploads to webp.

Also the reason people don’t like it is because gallery apps and the like are behind the times, so you can’t just, open webps, sometimes.

Krompus,
@Krompus@lemmy.world avatar

Lemmy converts all uploads to webp.

Does it? I downloaded this post from Liftoff, it’s a jpg.

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

At least my instance does. You’re right, this post is hosted on .world and is a jpg.

Krompus,
@Krompus@lemmy.world avatar

I checked sopuli.xyz local and saw a bunch of jpeg and png, no webp?

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Here’s just a few posts I’ve made where the image became webp after upload:

sopuli.xyz/post/715867sopuli.xyz/post/1045471sopuli.xyz/post/1045513sopuli.xyz/post/1045814sopuli.xyz/post/761239sopuli.xyz/post/782697sopuli.xyz/post/841604

I’m not imagining this. Were you checking posts where the image host in fact is the isntance, and not somewhere else?

KjoeLjan,

And Discord doesn't like webp as format for custom emotes. That's the main reason I've been converting them to png or gif

krashmo,

Make default programs support opening webp files and the problem goes away. Until that happens users have every reason to convert files from a format that is a pain in the ass to open.

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble,

They do.

Photos in windows supports it. Preview on Mac OS/photos on iOS supports it. I assume anything android would support it as well. Plus every web browser supports it.

IronKrill,

Web browsers may support it, but websites often do not (for upload).

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble,

Coincidentally Lemmy is where I’ve seen it used by far the most.

Probably 90% of the images that I’ve looked at have been webp.

crycry,
@crycry@lemmy.ml avatar

Photos in windows supports it

It does? Ive tried to use photos to open it before. Its impossible to associate the file with Photos intuitively. I am about to start directly editing my registry to see if i can do it there. (Windows 10, very custom so that might be the issue, I will try on a vanilla copy)

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble,

Looks like maybe only the photos app in Windows 11? My Windows 10 VM is pretty out of date but they could have updated it by now. But who knows with Microsoft.

According to wikipedia almost everyone jumped on board in about 2020.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebP#Support

Rozauhtuno,
@Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

But it took a while for it, and many people are probably running old software without the updates, so at this point the hate has cemented.

AuthorInkwell,
AuthorInkwell avatar

This. No programs I routinely use images for support it.

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

Can you list at least a few? Everyone’s like “noooo my apps don’t support it” but nobody says what apps, what are y’all afraid to admit that you use MS Paint or what?

Matriks404,

MSPaint literally opens WebP files, or at least it does in the most recent Windows 10 version (It doesn’t support saving them for some reason though).

But I also don’t believe that most apps don’t use it, the only app on my system that doesn’t support WebP is the default Windows app, which is horrible anyway.

But generally unless you use some very outdated software it should open webps just fine.

Chunk,

Gitlab won’t take a webp as a profile picture.

elephantium,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

I use MS paint on a regular basis! I play Civ succession games, so I take some screenshots of the game during my turns. I use Paint to crop them.

The helper utility I’ve been using can save as bmp, png, gif, or jpg.

The built-in Windows snipping tool can save as png, gif, jpg, or mht (which ends up being bmp under the hood).

Hmm, it might just be time to find a replacement tool.

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

Haha welcome to my another session of bitching about ancient media formats.

Anyway I’ll just recommend XnView to you too. 500 supported image formats, so you can imagine why I get so pissy when people try to convince me that jpg and gif forevaaaa and that webp or whatever is difficult to implement. Maybe give LWF (Lura Wave Format) a shot, that stuff has been around for 20+ years too and can blow jpg out of the water.

Oh XnView can do screenshots and cropping and stuff too. A free program that’s been around for 25 years, and for DOS before that. And yet the mainstream sticks to whatever nonsense is the default. It’s heartbreaking.

elephantium,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll check it out.

Mostly what I’m looking for is fire-and-forget screenshots. I’ll hit alt-printscreen to capture something during the between-turn processing, then go back and crop it and upload it later along with everything else. Tweaking that to a new hotkey -> select the area to screenshot would be fine, but I still want it to automatically save the screenshot in a folder. That was the “killer feature” of the screenie helper I’ve been using for ages.

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

Ok I’m not sure if XnView can automatically save a screenshot to a file (I don’t have a PC with me), but there are certainly lots of tools that can help with that too.

DakRalter,
@DakRalter@thelemmy.club avatar

I use my trusty Paint Shop Pro 7 and Paint Tool SAI, neither of which support it.

Jase,

How about a major one? Discord.

If you send any other image or gif, discord will show the image inline. Webp you have to download.

Want another one? Ifranview. An extremely common image viewer that has hyper customization and widespread support.

Want another one? OBS. Because that’s what you need when streaming. Another hoop to jump through in converting the image.

Want another one? Windows. They classify it as html and don’t display image data. Just left as white thumbnails.

Want another one? Photopea. Free online photoshop that you can access through web browser.

Want me to stop being bitchy towards you? Set an example and knock it off yourself.

stupidillusion,

Irfanview supports it now, I downloaded a plugin last week that added the format.

IronKrill,

Viewing webp is one of the reasons I even swapped to Irfanview.

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

See, that’s fair. I don’t know why people can’t say so. It’s time to name and shame companies that can’t keep up with the times.

I’m not saying webp is the be-all end-all, but goddamn we need to start using more modern compression for things. Especially gif, which is a fucking horrible format for what people use it today.

I still remember when Internet Explorer wouldn’t support png. It takes pressure to get crappy companies to move their ass.

In regards to both Windows and IrfanView, there’s a reason why I’ve been using XnView for 25 years now, with its 500 supported image formats, including webp of course.

lemme_at_it, (edited )

XN all the things, works on just about any major OS too.

Jase,

deleted_by_author

    •
    WhoRoger,
    @WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t know the technical aspects of webp, but as long as it’s just another image format, any application that works with images should be able to just support it with an import/export filter. Again, XnView supports 500 formats, so it can’t be impossible.

    And all my apps support webp so well, I never realized there could be a problem with it except when I heard that Windows is starting to support it and I realised that oh yea, them being slow again.

    Again it’s not just webp, there’s been a ton of attempts to bring better image formats, all the way back to jpeg2000. Some people just don’t want to do any amount of work beyond the basics.

    We’ve had the same problem with sound. Lots of good formats in the last 20 years - ogg, flac, aac - yet you can still find things that only play mp3, often only up to a certain bitrate. That’s not a good reason why everyone should forever stick only to mp3.

    Yet there’s never been a problem with adopting new video formats, and that stuff is way harder to implement, often requiring hardware support to be feasible. We’re not sticking to 30 years old Real Media and QuickTime. Images deserve better too.

    Kichae,

    Make default programs support JPEG XL and the problem goes away, too, all with less Google.

    MonkderZweite,

    I highly doubt they use webp to further their ambitions in web-supperiority. They just wanted something where they don’t have to pay license fees.

    genoxidedev1,
    genoxidedev1 avatar

    Yes PLEASE, JXL is just way superior and it's got the benefit of already having JPEG in its name which should ease widespread adoption. I never liked webp and it can seriously get lost.

    george,

    Naming a compression scheme “XL” seems like a bad choice.

    amanaftermidnight,

    It’s the early 00s and they’ve just been recently freed from the shackles of 8.3 file names, they’re going ham on those file extensions.

    Viking_Hippie,

    I have no idea what you mean. Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta be getting back to my job at Titanic Boat Repair.

    lemme_at_it, (edited )

    Bad name choices abound among software creators. It’s almost a default behaviour, especially in smaller teams or single developer situations. Like the guy who made “crap cleaner” for for his own use; he’d later share it with friends, by the time he released it to the public he was forced to rename it ccleaner, it is still going to this day as one of the most downloaded windows software (2.5 billion downloads). He could have just given it a decent name in the beginning - for free. There is also GIMP, whose name simply keeps it out of serious use, unless you already know it’s capabilities.

    dorumon,
    @dorumon@lemmy.world avatar

    Please stop running bloated websites with megabytes of dependencies on my chromebook or Walmart PC with a Intel Celeron that is 6 times slower yes I benchmarked them than my phone then maybe I would consider webp.

    All in all though seriously; the only good thing about webp and the only way to get good performance out of it is to make your own site on something like Neo Cities from hand crafted html5, css and JavaScript and not load bloated dependencies.

    Plus in general people would rather use png because it can be viewed on everything and some websites and services outright refuse to support webp so why not use png or jpg-xl?

    IronKrill, (edited )

    Plus in general people would rather use png because it can be viewed on everything and some websites and services outright refuse to support webp so why not use png or jpg-xl?

    Because PNG files are lossless and way higher quality than you need for sharing a meme over Discord. Using the extra 3MB isn’t worth it unless you can’t avoid it. And Jpeg XL is not supported by any browser right now and Chromium removed support entirely. Thus it’s most likely dead in the water, sadly. Your only other option for most things is regular old jpeg, which has all the old problems like lacking transparency.

    TheRealKuni,

    Chromium removed support entirely.

    Wow, fuck Google.

    possiblylinux127,

    Jpeg XL!

    elephantium,
    @elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

    The take-home message here is definitely that WebP is secretly evil :P

    WhoRoger,
    @WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

    From my point of view, gif is evil!

    (Seriously, I have a real light-axe to grind when it comes to gif. I can live with jpeg, but the 80MB 10-second crappy gifs people keep sharing, make me lose my Jedi patience.)

    PureTryOut,
    @PureTryOut@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    I hope AVIF gets a different fate. Problem is mostly that not every app opens it. I made my screenshots in AVIF for a while but had to stop doing it because not everybody could open the images properly…

    WhoRoger,
    @WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

    That looks like a nice format

    Pyroglyph,
    @Pyroglyph@lemmy.world avatar

    I can’t decide which I like more, AVIF or JXL. If you’d have asked me last month I would have said AVIF, but as I’m reading more about JXL I’m liking it a lot!

    ghariksforge,

    why is webp always so problematic?

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