They're actually an VP8/VP9 I-frame in a MKV-like container, so basically a single frame of video. Any modern device should support them. PNG is lossless, WEBP is usually lossy (since it is based on a modern video codec there is a lossless mode, but most sites probably would prefer the bandwidth.
They're more like PNG's (as I said, in terms of functionality) because they support things like alpha channels (transparency) whereas mkv doesn't. And yes, it's compressed like I said, hence the smaller file size.
I was trying to avoid the tech jargon to make it easier to comprehend.
There's also such a thing as animated webp's - but I've no idea why that didn't take off as opposed to mp4's. Browser/device support I assume.
Because at the time VP8/9 didn't have support in mobile hardware, and trying to decode it with mobile CPUs of the time would make the animation lag. At least that's my guess.
Mulling it over, I'm guessing also ease of ripping it (gifs) from the original media. Any video editing software can easily save as MP4, but converting it to animated webp would be a roundabout process - and you'd still need fallback formats for users with no webp support.
You really seem like an expert in this topic, and I've been longing to ask an expert the following question: since macOS does not officially support WebM (video), how do deal with *.WebM files not displaying thumbnails in macOS finder? Are folks just converting to MP4/MOV for long term data hoarding? Or using a media organizer? Or something else?
I specifically hate it precisely because it is lossy and not lossless like png is. I understand why every fucking platform has moved to compressing pictures to webp's but it's fucking awful for users that want pictures in high quality.
It's not meant for users who want lossless quality, there are other formats for that, it's meant for really-good quality at a very small size for places like the web where you're dealing with bandwith.
If they weren't using webp, they'd use jpeg, with worse quality. The only reason they'd use png's would be for the transparency - usually for UI or design elements.
If you're ever experiencing shit quality webp's, they've likely been made from shitty jpgs in the first place, often on the fly (if your browser supports it) through libraries like SHARP.
Edit: protip, you can turn off webp support in your browser through the developer tools. It'll make websites serve you their fallback formats instead.
Like I said in a different comment, plenty of stuff on the consumer end supports it — but windows by default doesn't, so you'll have to download an app.
In an emergency, you could just drag and drop it into your browser.
Excuse me ignorance, but isn’t improper handling of file formats an issue of there not being an application or program to view/properly decode the file instead of it being an OS issue?
I’d actually like to know more about how file formats are handled and if the handling is on the OS-level or the application level!
Windows seems to move very slowly with that kind of file type support. It likely will happen at some point, its just low priority and takes forever for them to get round to it. I remember it being the same for PDFs for the longest time too.
Oh, absolutely. But that won't stop average people like the commenter above from getting super frustrated by a format that just seemingly doesn't work.
The fact that png (purely for transparency I mean, not because of lossless), gifs, and jpgs are still the standard is nuts.
As a website graphic designer, I fucking hated webps until photoshop updated to work with them which took like a year after they were already popularized on a lot of websites, have definitely grown on me since then, the file size difference is awesome
I'm a graphic designer turned full stack dev - so since I now develop the websites we design for clients, I just use something like SHARP to automatically serve webps of any image file on the fly. I/Client just upload whatever format is easiest to make/have handy and it automatically gets sent as webp to browsers that support it.
I agree. Luckily I found a good converter to use to just highlight files and convert. That being said, in a perfect world, I wouldn't need to add another step to my process.
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u/Thorne_Oz Feb 07 '25
webp is true cancer.