What is a WEBP image used for, and how do I get around it?

Joined
10 May 2004
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Sunny Stafford
I like to make my own local HTML pages for the web browser e.g. a speed dial. I know speed dials already exist but I like making my own, messing around with scripts etc :) This involves saving transparent PNGs from the net, and over the last year, I'm finding that servers are delivering the images to me in WEBP format. The same sometimes happen with the JPG format. Saved WEBP images will open back up in the browser fine (Firefox) but they won't open in image editors, citing incompatible image format. Renaming a WEBP to .PNG or .JPG in a command prompt will sometime produce a workable PNG/JPG image but not always. It seems to be some kind of wrapper file?

Screenshot of what I'm trying to do:

VTskRqr.png

The Just-Eat logo was from here:

qh4KX5B.png

The page it came from.

Saving the image gives this prompt:

Q82VYah.png

My current workaround is to copy the image url and paste it into the Brave browser. Brave forces the server to deliver the image in the original PNG/JPG format. It will then save as a PNG/JPG and it opens up in an image editor no probs.

Back in Firefox, I tried a few about:config hacks which solves the problem, but it then "breaks" some web sites.

Does anyone know of a solution that forces the server to deliver images as original PNG / JPG without breaking the sites? I feel that the WEBP format is unneccesary!
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
10,042
Depends what image editor you have, but you can get plugins for Photoshop to open WebP.

WebP is an image format created by Google, it's file size is much much lower than jpg and png so it's useful for pages speed, hence it's use.

All images in Google images will be webP unless you open the webpage where they are located(like you've found)
I mostly right click the image and open image location and then sometimes it's in its correct format.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
10 May 2004
Posts
12,813
Location
Sunny Stafford
Ah thanks ChroniC :D

I tried the direct URL in Firefox which initially still pushed the WEBP version, but I figured out that if I press CTRL-F5, it forced the server to reload the image as a PNG.

I now understand the importance of day-to-day use with speeding up page loading times.
 
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