what are .webp files and why has my online experience been plagued by them?
what are .webp files and why has my online experience been plagued by them?
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
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It's just a modern image format. What do you mean you need to make hoops to do anything with it? Unless you are using some old, outdated software you should be able to do everything with it just like with good old .png's or jpg's.
Old, outdated software? Windows 11 won't open it, nor will Photoshop, last I checked.
I'm fully aware of the format, but until it's compatible with everything seamlessly the way PNG or JPEG are, I'd rather stick with those for now.
What's especially annoying is web pages that store their images seemingly as JPEG but are actually serving them through a CDN that converts them to WEBP if the browser supports them, so you try to save a seemingly JPEG JPEG, only to find at the last second it's actually WEBP.
Yes, because webp images are smaller while having similar quality than jpeg. On some images is greater reduction than on others.
So websites and CDNs are using webp to speed up delivery and reduce download size.
But yes, software support is not complete.
FWIW I use Photoshop 2023 to convert webp images to other formats occasionally. My Mac has no issues viewing them but I think my windows 10 desktop has issues. Pretty much all browsers support it though.
Just like GIFs, only web browsers open it, in Windows. That, and Irfanview.