Google has a big stake with the internet. When it comes to internet based services, it has a presence virtually everywhere. Be it email, publishing platform, image storage, online documents, advertisements and obviously internet search.
Google has created WebP which is basically an image format and will be used for speeding up loading time for an image online.
Features of WebP image format
- According to Google, WebP converter will usually allow people to reduce the quality of a particular image to an acceptable degree and cut the file size. Smaller sized image files means fast load up time for web-pages.
- Smaller sized images will mean a faster loading time for internet, less hosting costs and a more efficient web in general.
How can you use WebP image format?
Obviously most image editors will not support the WebP format. But Google has released a converter. At the moment it is not supported on Windows but a Linux version is available here.
Image Source: Google Code WebP Comparison
It clearly shows that the image sized is reduced by 10% of the original size. This is incredible as we all know that the major contributing factor to slower speeds is loading images heavy pages.
I am not sure if Google will make us stop using PNG and JPEG image formats and adopt WebP wholeheartedly. But most of these image formats are pretty old from the days of dial-up. They were meant to store images on computers and not exactly online. Maybe with WebP, Google is onto something. What do you think? Do drop in your comments.
Link: Google Code WebP
2 Comments
i don’t think we really need another image format.
May be google is trying to create a monopoly by entering into each and every field & making own version of themselves.
You are probably right about Google getting into to many places but I do not agree about not need new image formats. Change which makes storing data more efficient is finally more useful.
Google is trying to create this image format but I am not sure it is something they can make money out of or keep control of a new image format.