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

Middle out

[goombah99]

no it uses Middle Out which was inspired by ...

It may be as fast as Chrome . . .

[mmell]

but is it faster or more efficient than Edge? I mean, spartan is the render engine to beat nowadays. MicroSoft said so.

(*waits for angry mob with torches and pitchforks*)

WebP is an image file format!

[halfdan the black]

This is an extremely poorly written abstract and so completely full of buzzwords.

WebP is a freaking image file format, its that freaking simple. I mean 500 words of bullshit about "technology from Google that allows developers to create smaller, richer images that make the web faster.",
Literally all they had to say was WebP is like JPG except it compresses more. Thats it, no need to say anything else.

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.

Re:Why don't we just make the pages smaller?

[tepples]

The activity tracking is used to determine which SHIT to recommend that each visitor BUY.

Re:Why don't we just make the pages smaller?

[KiloByte]

golden days when web pages were under a megabyte on average without images

I remember being told that an image should never have more than 8KB, less if it's only a minor element.

That megabyte per page becomes far less negligible when you, say, need to visit just your bank's page when abroad (over international roaming) and a single visit (several subpages, 7MB total) sets you back $100. Now think about kids in rural Africa connecting their donated OLPCs.

As fast? You have things backwards

[dnaumov]

On Macs I use Safari first, Chrome second and Chrome only on Windows. Safari runs circles around Chrome, so I definately wouldn't like Safari becoming "as fast as Chrome" as it would indicate making it slower than it currently is.

WebP comparison

[jmv]

For those interested, I recently setup a comparison between different image formats, including WebP, Daala, BPG and JPEG.

Re:and yet already bested by FLIF

[evilviper]

there is a tradeoff between quality, file size, compression time and decompression time.

Only with video does complexity become a practical concern. With a few still images on a web page, even the lowest-end CPUs around can decode them instantly. In fact the speed-up you get from the lesser bandwidth required more than makes up for a little more decoding time.

We want WebM not just WebP, Apple...

[evilviper]

WebP support is nice, but pretty trivial. It's WebM (video) support that everyone has been asking Apple to add, for years now. You can bet iPhone users would like smaller YouTube videos, WebRTC video conferencing, etc., but Apple is holding-on tight to H.264 AVC as the only available video compression format. Any coincidence that they are among the companies earning patent royalties from patent licensing the format?

Apple is the one big hold out, preventing adoption of better, open and free video formats on the web. Though WebP is somewhat related, it doesn't get us any closer to WebM and the open web, which Apple is single-handedly holding-up. Absolutely every other major tech company has thrown their support behind the Alliance for Open Media.

See:

- http://pipedot.org/story/2015-...

- http://pipedot.org/story/2016-...

Re:One of the only ?

[donaldm]

"Microsoft is one of the only major players to "

What does that mean ?

How about putting in the full context which was "Microsoft is one of the only major players to not use WebP".

Looks pretty obvious to me.