> many gifs these days are actually served as soundless videos
That's not really true. Some websites lie to you by putting .gif in the address bar but then serving a file of a different type. File extensions are merely a convention and an address isn't a file name to begin with so the browser doesn't care about this attempt at end user deception one way or the other.
I parsed the comment as something along the lines of clever hackers somehow stuffing soundless videos into gif containers which is most certainly not what is going on. I was attempting to convey that they have nothing to do with gifs. Gifs are not involved anywhere in the process.
I'm not sure why people disagree so strongly with what I wrote. Worst case scenario is that it's a slightly tangential but closely related rant about deceptive web design practices. Best case scenario is that someone who thought some sort of fancy trick involving gifs was in use learns something new.
That's not really true. Some websites lie to you by putting .gif in the address bar but then serving a file of a different type. File extensions are merely a convention and an address isn't a file name to begin with so the browser doesn't care about this attempt at end user deception one way or the other.