
“Implement WebP image support” – Reported 8 years ago - xvilka
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=600919
======
clouddrover
WebP never caught on outside of Google's stack:

[https://caniuse.com/#search=WebP](https://caniuse.com/#search=WebP)

When Facebook tried to use WebP a while back their users didn't like it:

[https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-tries-googles-webp-
image-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-tries-googles-webp-image-format-
users-squawk/)

But these days if you really want to use WebP you can use a WebAssembly build
of the library to support it in browsers which don't support it natively:

[https://webmproject.github.io/libwebp-
demo/webp_wasm/index.h...](https://webmproject.github.io/libwebp-
demo/webp_wasm/index.html)

~~~
kalleboo
> When Facebook tried to use WebP a while back their users didn't like it

That's just a "Google sucks at UX" issue. Apple recently adopted HEIF in iOS
wholesale, but nobody is complaining because they made the correct UX call to
convert to JPEG as soon as there's the slightest chance the recipient doesn't
support the format.

------
bhnmmhmd
(not directly related to the topic)

Firefox (on Mac) lacks three things which I hope they fix them ASAP:

1\. Compared to Chrome, FF just makes the Mac insanely hot. Sometimes if a
website is stuck at loading, the CPU usage goes seriously high, resulting in
temperatures around 80˚ Celsius, and MBP fan rounds at ~5000 rpm.

2\. FF doesn't support page scrolling with keyboard shortcuts like Chrome
does. On a Mac, you can [big] scroll up/down using alt + arrow keys. "Home"
and "End" could also be achieved by Command + arrow keys. On FF however, I
haven't found the same shortcuts.

Update: It has a weak form of this feature (but still requires your MBP to
have "Home" and "End" buttons on it!): [https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perf...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly)

3\. FF used to be faster than Chrome at startup, but now on FF 57-58, when you
type in the omni-bar, it takes quite a long time for FF to figure out where it
has seen this before. In other words, it can't quickly tab-complete what
you're typing among bookmarks, history, etc.

I switched from Chrome to FF a while ago, mostly because of the Quantum and
the new slick modern UI. But due to these annoying problems, I switched back
to Chrome.

~~~
haikuginger
On #2, Fn-up and Fn-down are respectively equivalent to page up and page down
on the Mac (at an OS level).

~~~
bhnmmhmd
Yes, in the "Update" section I addressed that. But still Home and End aren't
available.

Edit: The comment below mentions another way to achieve Home/End features in
FF.

~~~
Twisol
Are they not? I use Cmd+Up and Cmd+Down to scroll to the top and bottom of a
page, respectively, on Firefox.

~~~
bhnmmhmd
You're right, I just used them and it works. Weird how Mozilla didn't mention
it on the link I provided.

~~~
Twisol
They do, but it might be confusing because they list "Home" and "End" first,
before the Cmd+Up/Down alternatives.

------
arusahni
Maybe we'll have better luck with the AV1-based alternative [1] that a
coalition (i.e., not Google acting unilaterally) is currently designing.

[1]: (warning, autoplaying video) [https://www.cnet.com/news/google-mozilla-
av1-photo-format-co...](https://www.cnet.com/news/google-mozilla-av1-photo-
format-could-outdo-aging-jpeg/)

~~~
bhouston
Nice. Hopefully the av1 photo format supports transparency.

------
kalleboo
JPEG XR always seemed like a better contender to me (I mean WebP launched
without _alpha channel_ support. How tone-deaf to developer/designer needs is
that?). But it had Microsoft's name on it so it was doomed from the start.

At this point it seems like we might as well wait for the eventual "HEIF for
AV1" to get the best bang-for-the-buck implementation if we're going to have
to support this format in perpetuity.

------
jgrahamc
WebP does give better image compression in our experience:
[https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-very-webp-new-year-from-
cloudf...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-very-webp-new-year-from-cloudflare/)

------
bhouston
Also it isn't in Safari and neither is apples new image format.

------
ghusbands
It happens quite a lot, in general, that some bugs simply don't get the kind
of attention they deserve. For example, non-Firefox browsers supported
relative positioning of table cells in 2000 or so, which is useful for
interactive table rearrangement, and Firefox held fast to not supporting it,
citing complications around backgrounds [1], even causing the standard to
temporarily change (which they then cite in the bug). List-style-position is
still broken [2]. There are plenty more, in all the browsers.

[1]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35168](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35168)
[2]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36854](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36854)

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Zekio
I would rather they did something about the Scrollbar in firefox, after all
that is a thing people have wanted for 17 years

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floatboth
Holy shit, WebP itself is that old already…

------
xvilka
Opened bug also in Servo, since it is essentially a future of the Firefox
[https://github.com/servo/servo/issues/20045](https://github.com/servo/servo/issues/20045)

