Safari Browser May Soon Be Just As Fast As Chrome With WebP Integration (thenextweb.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Next Web: The Safari browser included in Apple's iOS 10 and macOS Sierra software is testing WebP, technology from Google that allows developers to create smaller, richer images that make the web faster. Basically, it's a way for webpages to load more quickly. The Next Web reports: "WebP was built into Chrome back at build 32 (2013!), so it's not unproven. It's also used by Facebook due to its image compression underpinnings, and is in use across many Google properties, including YouTube." Microsoft is one of the only major players to not use WebP, according to CNET. It's not included in Internet Explorer and the company has "no plans" to integrate it into Edge. Even though iOS 10 and macOS Sierra are in beta, it's promising that we will see WebP make its debut in Safari latest this year. "It's hard to imagine Apple turning away tried and true technology that's found in a more popular browser -- one that's favored by many over Safari due to its speed, where WebP plays a huge part," reports The Next Web. "Safari is currently the second most popular browser to Chrome." What's also interesting is how WebP isn't mentioned at all in the logs for Apple's Safari Technology Preview.

Comments

GOOGLE TECH SUCKS

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope not. Google makes some of the absolute worst piece of shit software imaginable.

Apple would be wise to remove ever line of code written by google filth.

Why don't we just make the pages smaller?

[PsychoSlashDot]

These days - aside from (hypothetical and inevitably blocked) ads - it's not images that are the root problem. It's the half gigabyte of javascript.

I'm sorry Mr. Went To School For Web Design, but the moving pull-down menus and dynamic sliding content and whatnot is just not needed (except to justify your career). When I visit a website, all I really need are maybe four buttons: "BUY OUR SHIT", "DOWNLOAD UPDATES FOR OUR SHIT", "READ DOCUMENTATION ABOUT OUR SHIT", and "CONTACT US FOR ALL THE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR SHIT WE CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO PUT ON OUR WEB SITE".

Skip all the embedded activity tracking, metrics, demographics and dynamic content and we could go back to the golden days when web pages were under a megabyte on average without images.