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A new PNG spec

(www.programmax.net)
614 points bluedel | 8 comments | 24 Jun 25 13:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.952s | source | bottom
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poisonborz ◴[25 Jun 25 10:11 UTC] No.44375523[source]▶
Not backwards compatible. We just add it to that nice cupboard "great advanced image formats we will forget about".

Society doesn't need a new image format. I'd wager to say not any new multimedia format. Big corporate entites do, and have churning them out at a steady pace.

Look at poor webp - a format pushed by the largest industry players - and the abysmal everyday use it gets, and the hate it generates.

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michaelmior ◴[25 Jun 25 10:13 UTC] No.44375537[source]▶
> and the abysmal everyday use it gets

Estimates are that 95% of Internet users have a browser that supports WebP and that ~25% of the top million websites serve WebP images. I wouldn't call that abysmal.

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Geezus_42 ◴[25 Jun 25 10:48 UTC] No.44375752[source]▶
Great, so I can download it, but then I have to convert it to a different format before half my apps will be able to use it.
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wltr ◴[25 Jun 25 11:27 UTC] No.44376017[source]▶
Maybe the issue is with your operating system then?
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1. echelon ◴[25 Jun 25 12:33 UTC] No.44376559[source]▶
You can't use webp on Reddit, Instagram, and hundreds of other websites. Which is ironic because some of them serve images as webp.
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2. wltr ◴[25 Jun 25 12:49 UTC] No.44376703[source]▶
That doesn’t mean it’s dead, it rather shows sheer incompetence of the web dev departments of these wonderful companies for whom webp or avif aren’t images, I guess.
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3. PaulHoule ◴[25 Jun 25 12:57 UTC] No.44376780[source]▶
Instagram's image uploading interface is klunky compared to Mastodon which is entirely unfunded.
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4. socalgal2 ◴[25 Jun 25 12:57 UTC] No.44376783[source]▶
Just tested reddit. It works fine with .webp I don't have an instagram account
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5. ◴[25 Jun 25 13:06 UTC] No.44376869[source]▶
6. echelon ◴[25 Jun 25 13:07 UTC] No.44376871[source]▶
Try https://www.reddit.com/settings/profile

There are so many uneven areas of Reddit where WebP doesn't work. Old reddit, profile support, mod tools, etc.

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7. echelon ◴[25 Jun 25 13:08 UTC] No.44376885{3}[source]▶
This shows the unfortunate power of distribution.

It doesn't matter if the alternative is technically superior once the majority use the mainstream thing.

8. kccqzy ◴[25 Jun 25 14:49 UTC] No.44377994{3}[source]▶
I'm convinced that this is because of the prevalent MVP culture in modern software engineering. Instead of holistically looking at a new feature request such as "support webp images" we break it down into parts (e.g. "serve webp" "accept webp upload here" "accept webp upload there") and then we call it a MVP when only the highest priority items are done.