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.
I think PNG is a good format even today. It’s lossless compressed, so there isn’t that much you can squeeze out of that with new algorithms as you can out of lossy formats with new and smarter approaches.
Sadly, PNG is being terribly misused on the internet too. What it’s good for is simple drawn graphics, which it can compress to oblivion. So it’s perfect for screenshots of say, your operating system’s windows. I took a sshot as I’m typing this, and it came out as 190 kB. Not bad.
But what it’s so commonly used for, is people taking screenshots of photos such as from Instagram, and then reposting them. So instead of a tiny and shitty 50 kB IG picture, you get a 1.5MB PNG screenshots. Some then recompress it to a 1.5MB JPG for “maximum quality” when they realise they can’t upload PNG to photo sites.
I also very often encounter huge PNG photos with their extensions changed to JPG, and I don’t know how or why that is happening.
This one really grinds my gears. Why do so many people insist on sharing text by taking a picture instead of pasting the text? Or better yet, just linking to the original? It’s such a waste of bandwidth :(
Probably people uploading to sites that limit extensions thinking they’re clever by just changing the extension, or being straight up wrong in thinking the extension changing actually changes the file type.
The sites might not bother to check the metadata, and anything worth any salt that displays the image will ignore the extension anyway.
That sounds logical, but on most operating systems these days the extension is hidden, and/or you need to go through some hoops to change it. So I would think that most people who think that wouldn’t even know how to change it.
But more importantly, where do those PNGs come from in the first place? Sure, some are clearly screenshots such as of IG or TT, but there are tons of large PNG images that are clearly photos from cameras that someone just took and resaved as png (and later, or someone else, then renamed to jpg).
I could understand that happening occasionally for a bunch of reasons, but I’ve encountered this so many times, it’s pretty bizarre.
Btw it’s something you might not even notice if you aren’t using e.g. an image viewer that uses a different icon or background based on actual image type.
I suppose another solution might be that it falls under those lines, but some misbehaving services where they’re uploaded are giving out improper filenames and not confirming the type.
Though I can’t imagine many of those being incredibly popular, or, it’s just that images are recycled for so long that eventually many of them hit such a site in their lifetimes.
After reading through more comments in this discussion, maybe I have my answer, at least partially. A lot of people here suggest to use extensions and other ways to convert webp from the web to… PNG.
And then that PNG gets shared further…
Oh gawd if that’s why so many pngs are on the net… What a way to take a good idea and completely fuck it up. Now instead of a 2MB jpeg or 0.5MB webp we deal with 10MB pngs 🤦♂️
Anyway here’s my take on it