what are .webp files and why has my online experience been plagued by them?

Sparky678348@lemm.ee to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 417 points –

I don't know what a .webp file is but I don't like it. They're like a filthy prank version of the image/gif you're looking for. They make you jump through all these hoops to find the original versions of the files that you can actually do anything with.

Edit: honestly I assumed it had something to do with Google protecting themselves from image piracy shit

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There really is no secret ulterior motive in this case.

Sort of. Smaller images mean it’s less work for Google to crawl and index them, if every image is 40% smaller then that’s potentially saving them millions a year in storage and bandwidth costs.

So, yea, it’s better for the web but it also massively benefits them.

Well, they crawl and index anyways. I see no harm done with .webp. One of my friends said with .webp you can't save an image because it stops you from doing that somehow? I'm unsure, maybe true maybe not.