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JPEG is Dying - And that's a bad thing | 2kliksphilip
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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Technology
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JPEG is getting ~~old~~ long in the tooth, which prompted the creation of JPEG XL, which is a fairly future-proof new compression standard that can compress images to the same file size or smaller than regular JPEG while having massively higher quality.
However, JPEG XL support was removed from Google Chrome based browsers in favor of AVIF, a standalone image compression derived from the AV1 video compression codec that is decidedly not future-proof, having some hard-coded limitations, as well as missing some very nice to have features that JPEG XL offers such as progressive image loading and lower hardware requirements. The result of this is that JPEG XL adoption will be severely hamstrung by Google's decision, which is ultimately pretty lame.
And here we have a clear example of how Chrome's almost monopoly is a bad thing for us.
While I am by no means trying to defend Google, or their monopoly, I'm struggling to see how this time is a "clear example" of monopolistic behaviour?
Like, take for contrast the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) image format HEIC, which Apple has adopted as it's main high-res format on iOS. It's proprietary, and that fact is indeed worrying. However, the only reason I can figure out for Google's move here being a 'bad' thing, is if you're nostalgic about the .jpg extension...
I didn't mean the choice of image format is a monopolistic behavior, but that the monopoly puts google in a position that any choice they make, be it a good or bad one, becomes an industry standard, without others having any choice in it.