430
what are .webp files and why has my online experience been plagued by them? (lemm.ee)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
319 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I don't know what a .webp file is but I don't like it. They're like a filthy prank version of the image/gif you're looking for. They make you jump through all these hoops to find the original versions of the files that you can actually do anything with.

Edit: honestly I assumed it had something to do with Google protecting themselves from image piracy shit

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 235 points 3 years ago* (7 children)

The format actually has a lot of benefits - it supports transparency, animation, and compresses very efficiently. So it could theoretically replace GIF, JPG, and PNG in one fell swoop.

The downsides are that many apps don't currently support it and that it's owned by Google.

Personally I use webp for images that are not intended to share (e.g. banners and images on my blog), but stick to JPG/PNG for sending to other people.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
    •
  • [–] 152 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    and that it’s owned by Google.

    I mean yes, but it's patent irrevocably royalty free (so long as you don't sue people claiming WebM/P as your own/partially your own work), so it's effectively owned by the public.

    Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer implementations of the WebM Specifications, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by implementation of the WebM Specifications. If You or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any implementation of the WebM Specifications constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any rights granted to You under the License for the WebM Specifications shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. "WebM Specifications" means the specifications to the WebM codecs as embodied in the source code to the WebM codecs or any written description of such specifications, in either case as distributed by Google.

    Source: https://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/

    (But Dark, that's WebM not WebP! -- they share the same license: https://groups.google.com/a/webmproject.org/g/webp-discuss/c/W4_j7Tlofv8)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 29 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Thank you for this. I was kind of on the fence because of its ties to google but this helps a ton.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [+] -39 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    You could still be on the fence. It's Google so for sure it has the possibility of tracking or some other user exploiting bullshit feature but we haven't figure it out yet.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 49 points 3 years ago (1 child)
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 41 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    It's also just an open file format. Anyone could implement it, and in fact I found dozens of completely independent implementations of webp decoders on GitHub in various languages.

    There really is no secret ulterior motive in this case.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    There really is no secret ulterior motive in this case.

    Sort of. Smaller images mean it’s less work for Google to crawl and index them, if every image is 40% smaller then that’s potentially saving them millions a year in storage and bandwidth costs.

    So, yea, it’s better for the web but it also massively benefits them.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Open source just like Chromium or Android, right? They're open source also, right? 😈

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

    Chromium and Android really are open-source. There are hundreds of products like Electron and Fire OS built on top of them without any involvement or consent from Google.

    Just because Google Chrome and Pixel phones have some proprietary code doesn't mean that Android and Chromium aren't open.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Well your right I wasn't clear in my answer. They are open source but for the point of this discussion with open source software backed by an corporation the open source it's just a mean of spreading "soft power" maybe gather inovation from the market and for sure to offer a way for FOSS creators to use their energies to build in the "correct" direction. The purpose it's building a monopoly on certain aspects of the market.

    Chromium is open source and a lot of small projects have sprouted from it but with the same undelying technology. Except for Firefox, Edge and Safary, everyone stems from the same roots controlled by google trough money and market share. So in this case Chrome dominates the market and decides the course of the industry. See mv3.

    Android is open source and some projects are build on top of it but the big market share so the direction of the technology is controlled by Google.

    Let them decide a stadard for pictures which has undeniable advantages and I bet you that tomorow they will decide how you share and visualise images and videos.

    It's not about being open source it's about that project being a tool used by a company to spread their interests (which usually end up being predatory towards the common user).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 36 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    And here comes jpegXL claiming the same things. Fun times.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Jpegxl will die because it has a bad name, that's it

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [+] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Lol sooo cool, just like my XL boxer briefs and my XL diet coke. Also wtf jpegxl is great at making things smaller

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Confusingly, XL doesn't stand for "eXtra Large". JPEG has had multiple standards over the years, many of which start with X. In this context, the L in XL means Long-term. As in, they expect this format to last a long time like the original JPEG we all know and "love" has.

    Source

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    Yeah I wouldn't have an issue with them if they weren't so incompatible with most of the programs and sites I like to use. It makes them super inconvenient to work with. I know some apps are catching up and supporting them, but it feels like the adaptation is slow and patchy which makes it difficult to know which programs will support webp at some point and when.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Potientially dumb question here, but how does Google own a file format? They own the patent?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    So basically what APNG tried to be?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    APNG is lossless.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    True. Why did it remain relatively unknown while webp seems to have taken off?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    libpng refused to accept it

    mozilla made it because it suited their needs; and libpng (the organisation behind png, and who make the standard png decoder[^1]) refused to add compatibility, insisting on mng instead. mng was bad, so nobody used it; and apng was great, but require mozillas version of the decoder so systems couldn't use both the official version and the apng supporting version together

    [^1]: and have a fantastic website

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Ah, so it was people being prideful idiots because it didn't come from their own fiefdom.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    partly, i don't think it was just that. mng did have considerable benefits over apng at the time; but it was a solution looking for a problem. i think they wanted it to succeed because they'd poured time into it, but nobody wanted to support it (mozilla, the only browser to support it to my knowledge, dropped support eventually because the mng decoder was bigger than every other image decoder in firefox put together)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    That's a great idea. But can't webp simply be converted into a png or mp4 file?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    mp4 isn't generally for images.

    Yes you can convert, it's just that many existing tools may not presently support webp. If you just want a quick & dirty meme you can always screen cap.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    The fun thing is heif is actually effectively single frame of h.265 video because the amount of work that's gone into making h.265 space efficient also happens to work really well for efficienct compression of individual frames of video aka images

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent