14 DAY TRIAL // WebP, the new image format from Google, has been struggling to get recognition, let alone adoption. But that's true for all new standard file formats, and WebP has actually had it pretty well so far.
It's evolving quite fast, part of the reason why adoption is slow perhaps, but it now has a solid set of features.
And it may soon be getting a big vote of confidence if Mozilla decides to support it in Firefox. Initially, Mozilla dismissed the format citing the lack of several crucial features, as well as lack of developer support.
Since then though, WebP has gotten better and, more importantly, it has gotten an important ally, Facebook.
Facebook is the largest photo site on the planet, so even a small improvement on this front is going to be huge at Facebook's scale. The site has been experimenting with WebP, annoying some users, but its experiments are limited by the fact that Chrome is the only major browser that supports WebP.
Which is why it's "encouraging" Mozilla to adopt WebP as well. And since Mozilla is a company that works in the open, we get to see exactly how it works.
Facebook developer Bryan Alger weighed in on the issue on Mozilla's bug tracker. He revealed that Facebook is working on using WebP in a "production" environment in the short term.
"I am the Facebook engineer examining the adoption of webp as a serving format. We are very excited about the new format and keeping a close eye on the community to monitor adoption," Alger explained.
"It is entirely likely we will be serving webp images in some capacity in the short term after we address user complaints from our limited testing. It goes without saying, we would love to see webp support coming to Firefox soon," he added.