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> and the abysmal everyday use it gets Estimates are that 95% of Internet users have a browser that supports WebP and that ~25% of the top million websites ser

> and the abysmal everyday use it gets Estimates are that 95% of Internet users have a browser that supports WebP and that ~25% of the top million websites serve WebP images. I wouldn't call that abysmal.

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
My file manager can’t handle them but my browser can. Edit: and good luck uploading the format to the majority of webforms that aren’t faang.
- debugnik 1y ago
  Not even Google supports webp uploads in many of their web apps, and it's their format.
  - chillingeffect 1y ago
    Could it be a lack of resources? Or some missing expertise? Maybe they could find some interns who are familiar with it? Maybe the entire world is so obsessed w AI, we don't even care about image formats anymore.
    - pixl97 1y ago
      Honestly this kind of stuff happens all the time in large companies. Interns won't want to work on a dead end like this. Moreso they need to be supervised by someone that doesn't want to get removed by being the lowest X% usefulness in a company. So all these existing tools that aren't primary revenue generators just sit on coast mode.
      - chillingeffect 1y ago
        Thank you for the nice response... in contrast to those I deserved downvoting. You'ee alright.
- upcoming-sesame 1y ago
  If you are using an image optimization service like Imgix / Cloudflare Image Resizing then it doesn't really matter, image can be uploaded as any supported format and will be sent to the end user according to their "Accept" header
  - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
    if you’d like to go and implement that in all the millions of existing web apps, go ahead? Let’s also not forget the dependency mess that leaves in applications before we do though..
- account42 1y ago
  Demand more from you file manager then.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
    Sure, ur then it’s my image viewer, my phones image viewer, the website I try and upload pictures to. This isn’t a problem you can solve by patching one application, and it’s not one the world as a whole cares about. Better image formats serve entities who store images at scale, not end users.
dotancohen 1y ago
5% of people can't view them, yet 25% of top websites use them? In what other industry would it be considered acceptable to exclude 5% of visitors/users/clients?
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
  Not all businesses are attempting to reach a market of "every internet user globally".
- bawolff 1y ago
  Can the 5% view images at all? The number of web crawlers have exploded recently.
  - jdiff 1y ago
    Yes, but it's 2% that are still using browsers without full support for WebP according to caniuse, which takes its numbers from StatCounter. https://caniuse.com/webp https://caniuse.com/webp Note that I'm looking at "all tracked," which excludes 2% "other" browsers in the data whose featureset is not known.
- 0points 1y ago
  > 5% of people can't view them, yet 25% of top websites use them? That's not how it works. The server declares what versions of media it has, and the client requests a supported media format. The same trick have been used for audio and video for ages too. Example: <picture> <source srcset="a.webp" type="image/webp"> <img src="fallback.jpg"> </picture>
  - vbezhenar 1y ago
    This problem was solved by HTTP since forever. Client sends `Accept` header with supported formats and server selects the necessary content with corresponding `Content-Type` header. You don't need any HTML tags for it.
    - 1y ago
Geezus_42 1y ago
Great, so I can download it, but then I have to convert it to a different format before half my apps will be able to use it.
- wltr 1y ago
  Maybe the issue is with your operating system then?
  - jdiff 1y ago
    App support has very little to do with the operating system. OSes by and large will preview it just fine.
    - dinkblam 1y ago
      on the contrary. on macOS apps don't have to support image (or movie) formats. it is done by the system and transparently handled by the APIs. apps automatically gain new formats when the system adds it.
      - reaperducer 1y ago
        The unfortunate side effect of this convenience is that apps automatically lose image support when macOS chases to no longer support them, too. One example is Sony's SRF camera raw format. Programs like Photoshop and Affinity have to bring their own decoders where previously none were required.
        dspillett 1y ago
        And having to bring in support for formats that are deprecated by the OS, if they decide to keep supporting that format as there is sufficient demand from their users, is worse than having to bring in support for all formats rather than getting support from the OS? Having ask that in a slightly confrontational way, one of the reasons I started using VLC all those years ago, and still use it to this day, was having trouble with other media players that relied on OS support fail to work well (or at all) with some codecs, while VLC brought support for them, and their dog, built-in and reliable. Dragging your own format support libraries with you can be beneficial.
AlienRobot 1y ago
You can't even upload webp to instagram.
- bastawhiz 1y ago
  Which makes sense for an app made for photos: why would you capture a photograph to disk in a format made for distributing on the web?
  - jdiff 1y ago
    Indeed, why might one upload a photo to the web in a format made for distributing images on the web?
    - bastawhiz 1y ago
      I could save my photos as BMPs like early digital cameras did but that doesn't make it practical or reasonable. My camera takes pictures as RAW or HEIF files. Why would I save my photos to a primarily lossy codec that's optimized and designed for distribution rather than preserving fidelity? We used to do this with JPEG, in fact. And that's why many pictures on Facebook from pre-2018 or so all have a distinctive grainy look. It's artifacts on top of artifacts. Storage on phones isn't tight anymore, we don't need to store photos in a format meant to minimize bytes at the expense of quality.
      - jdiff 1y ago
        There's more on Instagram than photos. Lotta meme pages, lot of people just uploading random screenshots and photos they downloaded that have been turned over a million times. Heck, all it takes is someone downloading their own photo from SocialMediaX to reupload on SocialMediaY, or just uploading a the WebP that they exported for their website.
  - Sharlin 1y ago
    Instagram hasn't even been primarily or even secondarily about photos for a long time. Indeed trying to "just" upload a photo is made super inconvenient these days.
whywhywhywhy 1y ago
completely fails the second you want to do anything more than load it on a webpage Photoshop still won’t open it, MacOS preview opens it but then demands to convert it to tiff when you try to edit it
- asgerhb 1y ago
  Maybe using VLC Media Player from an early age has left me with too high expectations. But if I have a program designed to view or edit a certain class of file, and it doesn't support a certain file format, I will blame that program.
- account42 1y ago
  GIMP and Gwenview have supported webp (the latter via platform image plugins that add support to other applications as well) since before you encountered them online. Maybe choose better tools.

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago

My file manager can’t handle them but my browser can. Edit: and good luck uploading the format to the majority of webforms that aren’t faang.

debugnik 1y ago
Not even Google supports webp uploads in many of their web apps, and it's their format.
- chillingeffect 1y ago
  Could it be a lack of resources? Or some missing expertise? Maybe they could find some interns who are familiar with it? Maybe the entire world is so obsessed w AI, we don't even care about image formats anymore.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    Honestly this kind of stuff happens all the time in large companies. Interns won't want to work on a dead end like this. Moreso they need to be supervised by someone that doesn't want to get removed by being the lowest X% usefulness in a company. So all these existing tools that aren't primary revenue generators just sit on coast mode.
    - chillingeffect 1y ago
      Thank you for the nice response... in contrast to those I deserved downvoting. You'ee alright.
upcoming-sesame 1y ago
If you are using an image optimization service like Imgix / Cloudflare Image Resizing then it doesn't really matter, image can be uploaded as any supported format and will be sent to the end user according to their "Accept" header
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  if you’d like to go and implement that in all the millions of existing web apps, go ahead? Let’s also not forget the dependency mess that leaves in applications before we do though..
account42 1y ago
Demand more from you file manager then.
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  Sure, ur then it’s my image viewer, my phones image viewer, the website I try and upload pictures to. This isn’t a problem you can solve by patching one application, and it’s not one the world as a whole cares about. Better image formats serve entities who store images at scale, not end users.

dotancohen 1y ago

5% of people can't view them, yet 25% of top websites use them? In what other industry would it be considered acceptable to exclude 5% of visitors/users/clients?

sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
Not all businesses are attempting to reach a market of "every internet user globally".
bawolff 1y ago
Can the 5% view images at all? The number of web crawlers have exploded recently.
- jdiff 1y ago
  Yes, but it's 2% that are still using browsers without full support for WebP according to caniuse, which takes its numbers from StatCounter. https://caniuse.com/webp https://caniuse.com/webp Note that I'm looking at "all tracked," which excludes 2% "other" browsers in the data whose featureset is not known.
0points 1y ago
> 5% of people can't view them, yet 25% of top websites use them? That's not how it works. The server declares what versions of media it has, and the client requests a supported media format. The same trick have been used for audio and video for ages too. Example: <picture> <source srcset="a.webp" type="image/webp"> <img src="fallback.jpg"> </picture>
- vbezhenar 1y ago
  This problem was solved by HTTP since forever. Client sends `Accept` header with supported formats and server selects the necessary content with corresponding `Content-Type` header. You don't need any HTML tags for it.
  - 1y ago

Geezus_42 1y ago

Great, so I can download it, but then I have to convert it to a different format before half my apps will be able to use it.

wltr 1y ago
Maybe the issue is with your operating system then?
- jdiff 1y ago
  App support has very little to do with the operating system. OSes by and large will preview it just fine.
  - dinkblam 1y ago
    on the contrary. on macOS apps don't have to support image (or movie) formats. it is done by the system and transparently handled by the APIs. apps automatically gain new formats when the system adds it.
    - reaperducer 1y ago
      The unfortunate side effect of this convenience is that apps automatically lose image support when macOS chases to no longer support them, too. One example is Sony's SRF camera raw format. Programs like Photoshop and Affinity have to bring their own decoders where previously none were required.
      - dspillett 1y ago
        And having to bring in support for formats that are deprecated by the OS, if they decide to keep supporting that format as there is sufficient demand from their users, is worse than having to bring in support for all formats rather than getting support from the OS? Having ask that in a slightly confrontational way, one of the reasons I started using VLC all those years ago, and still use it to this day, was having trouble with other media players that relied on OS support fail to work well (or at all) with some codecs, while VLC brought support for them, and their dog, built-in and reliable. Dragging your own format support libraries with you can be beneficial.

AlienRobot 1y ago

You can't even upload webp to instagram.

bastawhiz 1y ago
Which makes sense for an app made for photos: why would you capture a photograph to disk in a format made for distributing on the web?
- jdiff 1y ago
  Indeed, why might one upload a photo to the web in a format made for distributing images on the web?
  - bastawhiz 1y ago
    I could save my photos as BMPs like early digital cameras did but that doesn't make it practical or reasonable. My camera takes pictures as RAW or HEIF files. Why would I save my photos to a primarily lossy codec that's optimized and designed for distribution rather than preserving fidelity? We used to do this with JPEG, in fact. And that's why many pictures on Facebook from pre-2018 or so all have a distinctive grainy look. It's artifacts on top of artifacts. Storage on phones isn't tight anymore, we don't need to store photos in a format meant to minimize bytes at the expense of quality.
    - jdiff 1y ago
      There's more on Instagram than photos. Lotta meme pages, lot of people just uploading random screenshots and photos they downloaded that have been turned over a million times. Heck, all it takes is someone downloading their own photo from SocialMediaX to reupload on SocialMediaY, or just uploading a the WebP that they exported for their website.
- Sharlin 1y ago
  Instagram hasn't even been primarily or even secondarily about photos for a long time. Indeed trying to "just" upload a photo is made super inconvenient these days.

whywhywhywhy 1y ago

completely fails the second you want to do anything more than load it on a webpage Photoshop still won’t open it, MacOS preview opens it but then demands to convert it to tiff when you try to edit it

asgerhb 1y ago
Maybe using VLC Media Player from an early age has left me with too high expectations. But if I have a program designed to view or edit a certain class of file, and it doesn't support a certain file format, I will blame that program.
account42 1y ago
GIMP and Gwenview have supported webp (the latter via platform image plugins that add support to other applications as well) since before you encountered them online. Maybe choose better tools.