Progressive JPEGs have been touted as a solution to this, but still they are rarely used. The idea is the browser will download only as much data as it needs, a

Progressive JPEGs have been touted as a solution to this, but still they are rarely used. The idea is the browser will download only as much data as it needs, and display the image as the data is received (so it renders a low quality version faster). There is a small overhead in the full file, but if it means a mobile user is saving 200kb+ it's worth it. All modern browsers support it (even Safari on iOS which didn't a few years ago) [0], so I don't really know it isn't used more widespread. [0] Demo page: http://pooyak.com/p/progjpeg/ http://pooyak.com/p/progjpeg/