What is WebP?

What is WebP?

WebP is the newest image format developed by Google. The main advantage of WebP is that it reduces the file size of an image up to 30% compared to files in JPG or PNG format, without any noticeable loss of image quality. This means you can store a lot more pictures in the same amount of disk space.

But that’s not all WebP is good for. Since WebP images have smaller file sizes, large images open more quickly on the web. And because of reduced loading times, more and more Web sites are using WebP images more frequently.

On the downside, some web browsers like Apple’s Safari don’t yet support WebP images. And Internet Explorer does not support WebP images and never will.

If you’re using Windows 10 you can open WebP images without installing any 3rd-party programs by right-clicking on a WebP file and choosing “Open with” and selecting Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Paint.

We use Irfanview to open WebP files and to convert JPG and/or PNG files to WebP. We’ve been using Irfanview for over 20 years because it’s free, it’s the fastest image viewer we’ve ever used and it is always updated and current. If you want to try Irfanview and/or learn more about it visit this page.

Here are some examples of WebP images (all of these were converted from JPG to WebP using Irfanview).

If you don’t see the images above, then you’re not using a browser that supports WebP images. Try using Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, or any of the many Chromium-based browsers like Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Epic, Chromium, and many others. Or use a Mozilla-based browser like Waterfox or Pale Moon,

Here are all the images above in their original JPG format: