Facebook Using Google's WebP Image Format

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Oh look, Facebook makes another change that ultimate just pisses everyone off. :D

Facebook has begun using a Google image format called WebP that could lower its network costs and speed up its Web site. But the move has angered some members. When people upload JPEG photos, the social-networking juggernaut converts them into the WebP format. And now it also apparently has begun delivering those images to people with browsers that can handle them, which today means Chrome and Opera.
Click to expand...
 
Statistically, facebook holds most of the pictures ever taken on earth. They have over 300 million of them uploaded PER DAY. Saving a few KB over a jpeg for each image could save them 100s of terabytes worth of bandwidth a day. If it is really a problem for people wanting to snag pictures off of facebook, use IE, as it will not serve them up to you using IE (yet).
 
I don't see a real problem here. IE does have a plug-in to view webp and webp is an going to be if not already an open standard. Which mean that any browser that want to add support could. If FaceBook can save some storage space, then good for them. That a switch that will in the long run save them money. Also it will start to move web devs to the standard. I love PNGs, and it took years for IE to support them, but now it is the standard. I just wish some one could replace GIFs with something better, PNG supports animations too, but no one uses it.

Disclaimer: I don't use facebook.
 
Indistinguishable quality difference and a third smaller filesize?

Nifty.

Wait, chrome users are getting pissed off because thir photos arent jpeg?
For some reason i was under the impression that android and chrome users were more technologically capable than the average user.
 
Not exactly a fan of Facebook but I can see this sorta thing making alot of sense. I'll keep an open mind on this and see where it goes. It sounds like a great idea. This is one of those things that could go either way.
 
Ocean said:
For some reason i was under the impression that android and chrome users were more technologically capable than the average user.
Click to expand...

That would be true 4 years ago. The shift just happened very fast. Everyone uses Chrome these days. And people are proud haha :D Google sure is powerful.

I am all for more efficient formats, though I am very much against lossy formats. Make them harder to decode and require more processing power instead of lowering quality damn it. I had enough of jpeg/mp3. It is amazing people actually spend money on mp3s.
 
seriously, this guy in the article says he does image editing and can't open webp? there are plenty of plugins. i know, he means you shouldn't need one, but he does image editing, whooo, so he's not that pro after all. sounds like people i know who claim that they "photograph". this claim has no correlation to actual professional results. it just means they have a camera and press a button to take a picture.

in other news: who cares about facebook
 
Ocean said:
Indistinguishable quality difference and a third smaller filesize?

Nifty.

Wait, chrome users are getting pissed off because thir photos arent jpeg?
For some reason i was under the impression that android and chrome users were more technologically capable than the average user.
Click to expand...

Jpegs are a universally accepted format, WebP is not. This is not a small change. Further, Facebook should offer a way to choose Jpeg or WebP.
 
It will probably become a "universally accepted" format once everyone's favorite picture viewer has support for it.

Plugin that lets you "save as jpg" in 3...2..
 
Spire3660 said:
Jpegs are a universally accepted format, WebP is not. This is not a small change. Further, Facebook should offer a way to choose Jpeg or WebP.
Click to expand...

If the browser supports it, then why not?

I myself used XnConverter to convert many archived images to webP that were not important photos and saved plenty of GBs. Every so often I convert my photos on my GS3 to save some room on the SD Card.

Sure there is no NEED to switch, but I support it as long as my applications and uses support it.

I will agree though, there should be an option to deliver in JPEG if you want that. But for most users, webP should be fine to deliver content in and save a little bandwidth.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top