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Firefox To Support Google's WebP Image Format For a Faster Web (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the marching-forward dept.

Firefox has joined Google's WebP party, another endorsement for the internet giant's effort to speed up the web with a better image format. From a report: Google revealed WebP eight years ago and since then has built it into its Chrome web browser, Android phone software and many of its online properties in an effort to put websites on a diet and cut network data usage. But Google had trouble encouraging rival browser makers to embrace it. Mozilla initially rejected WebP as not offering enough of an improvement over more widely used image formats, JPEG and PNG. It seriously evaluated WebP but chose to try to squeeze more out of JPEG. But now Mozilla -- like Microsoft with its Edge browser earlier this week -- has had a change of heart. "Mozilla is moving forward with implementing support for WebP," the nonprofit organization said. WebP will work in versions of Firefox based on its Gecko browser engine, Firefox for personal computers and Android but not for iOS.

10 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Still don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What makes the web slow is unnecessary javascript. The "problems" with JPEG and PNG are miniscule compared to the problems with bloated javascript, and downright negligable if you actually take the time to optimally compress your images.

    1. Re:Still don't get it by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      You mean downloading Megs of jQuery just so I can do a couple of $("#content").html("Text") is slowing things down? How could that be document.getElementById("content").innerHTML = "Text" is much longer to write.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Still don't get it by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2

      You mean downloading Megs of jQuery just so I can do a couple of $("#content").html("Text") is slowing things down? How could that be document.getElementById("content").innerHTML = "Text" is much longer to write.

      If that were all that jQuery did, you'd have a point.

      jQuery abstracts away browser bugs and differences, just for one (huge) thing.

      It also makes things easy that are a huge PITA to implement in JavaScript.

      Yes, nothing you can do with jQuery can't be done with plain JavaScript - after all, jQuery is written in plain JavaScript. But you could just as well say that nothing you can do in C can't be done in assembly.

    3. Re:Still don't get it by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      The regular jquery.min.js file is currently 85k, it's not megabytes by a long shot. Yes, you might also use add-ons, but the thing by itself is usually enough for most web developers, and even includes a lot of non-DOM stuff like AJAX.

      The reason jQuery causes websites that use it to bloat has nothing to do with the size of the library, and it doesn't cause megabytes of data to be loaded. jQuery's main flaw is that it relies heavily on closures, which are extremely hard to garbage collect (in Javascript a closure can refer to the scope of the code that created it, which means all or most of that data has to left in memory until the closure itself is destroyed.) Add in the possibility of a closure using eval() (making it impossible for a JS interpreter/compiler to determine what data might get referenced) and you realize JS closures are horribly flawed.

      Not that I'm knocking jQuery for using closures, as a heavy jQuery user I can understand why, and it makes AJAX calls so much cleaner. This is a JS problem, and one that's probably too late to do anything about.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Image formats aren't the bottleneck. by RyanFenton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Compression levels and file size aren't the current limitations on 'web speed' as such.

    The limits are REALLY, REALLY easy to detect, if you try any sizable set of major websites with and without various levels of ad blocking and script blocking.

    The limitation is servers placed in between users and the content they want, by marketing company servers that demand to be parsed before loading.

    And marketing companies don't place much priority on 100% minimal load times, compared to showing greater statistics on what makes them money.

    That's what kills the traffic flow - like a small number of bad actors can slow any traffic system. When those actors are left in front of the others, with no way to get around them, all the traffic is slowed.

    This is a fix - but it's very much not a general fix for what most affects people's experience online.

    Adblock and script blocking are that for now - but bypassing a >1ms marketing server delay would be the more proper fix if you wanted ads to keep paying for things.

    Have marketing companies absolutely lose their chance to show ads for any, ANY delay would fix their priorities, and fix the web for those that want to keep it an ad-loaded experience.

    Ad/script blocking works for everyone else.

    Ryan Fenton

    1. Re:Image formats aren't the bottleneck. by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      Part of the problem is you that you have morons claiming "ad blocking is unethical.

      *facepalm*

      So closing my eyes is fine but if I use technology to do the same thing all of it sudden it becomes "ethical" ??? WTF !

      I use ad-blocking to SPEED up MY browsing experience and not load images + cookies from 30+ different websites.

    2. Re:Image formats aren't the bottleneck. by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

      Being on dialup when I travel (yes really) I have a slightly different view. If I load the page straight-up, it's extremely slow (over a minute). However my dialup also has a compression algorithm and "Disable flash" that I can turn on.

      - The page looks like crap (2 color GIFs and JPEGs are not pretty), but it loads in less than 10 seconds.

      - And of course turning-off Flash means the annoying animated videos don't load.

      From my point of view Images and Flash are the main culprits for making webpages bloated and slow to load.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  3. Re:Can't wait for this to show up on 4chan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    In an age where Americans have degenerated to the level of stupidity where they take high-fidelity audio and video, then down-scale resolution frame-rate and color-depth, mute it, and subtitle it, just so they can repost it as GIF on reddit.com imgur.com and other retarded web sites, you decide to complain about... PNG?

  4. I hate WebP by Waccoon · · Score: 2

    WebP is another one of those things as Google that was thrown together as a test vehicle for a compression algorithm. It sucks as a format and comes in multiple inconstant flavors (versions) that make it a PITA to support. Just getting the image dimensions requires a lot of low-level bit shifting and twiddling for no damn reason, and how that's done depends on how the chunks are organized. It's a mess. It's no surprise to me why it didn't catch on. After trying to add support for it on my image board, I just gave up. Retrieving image information is too difficult as there's too many gotchas.

    Of course, Google would prefer that you just use their huge, complex WebP library, so you don't have to worry about how to unwind that horrible mess.

  5. AMINATION CONTROL by markdavis · · Score: 2

    Please, Mozilla, if you are going to support WebP images make absolutely sure Firefox complies with the image.animation_mode setting so any WebP animation can be controlled or disabled by the user!