Chief Technology Writer
Someone emailed you a WEBP file and you don't know how to open it? Maybe you have found a WEBP file on your computer and wondering what it's for? Windows may tell you that you cannot open it, or, in the worst case scenario, you may encounter an appropriate error message associated with the WEBP file.
Before you can open a WEBP file, you need to find out what kind of file the WEBP file extension is.
tip: Incorrect WEBP file association errors can be a symptom of other underlying issues within your Windows operating system. These invalid entries can also produce associated symptoms such as slow Windows startups, computer freezes, and other PC performance issues. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you scan your Windows registry for invalid file associations and other issues related to a fragmented registry.
Answer:
WEBP files are Bitmap Files, which is predominantly associated with Web Browsers (Google).
Additional types of files may also be using the WEBP file extension. If you are aware of any other file formats that use the WEBP file extension, please contact us so that we can update our information accordingly.
How to open your WEBP file:
The fastest and easiest way to open your WEBP file is to double-click it. In this case, the Windows system itself will select the necessary program to open your WEBP file.
In the event that your WEBP file does not open, it is highly likely that you do not have the required software application installed on your PC to view or edit files with WEBP extensions.
If your PC opens the WEBP file but in the wrong program, you will need to change the file association settings in your Windows registry. In other words, Windows is associating the WEBP file extension with the wrong program.
Install optional products - FileViewPro (Solvusoft) | | | |
WEBP Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME):
WEBP File Analysis Tool™
Are you not sure what type of WEBP file is? Want to get accurate information about a file, its creator, and how it can be opened?
Now you can instantly get all the information you need about the WEBP file!
The revolutionary WEBP File Analysis Tool™ scans, analyzes and reports detailed information about a WEBP file. Our algorithm (patent pending) will quickly parse the file and in a few seconds provide detailed information in a visual and easy to read format.†
In just a few seconds, you will know exactly the type of your WEBP file, the application associated with the file, the name of the user who created the file, the protection status of the file, and other useful information.
To start your free file analysis, simply drag-and-drop your WEBP file inside the dotted lines below, or click Browse My Computer and select your file. The WEBP file analysis report will be shown below, right in the browser window.
Drag and drop WEBP file here to start analysis
View my computer »
Please also check my file for viruses
Your file is being parsed... please wait.
Good day friends. More recently, I discovered that I can’t save pictures from the browser with the right mouse button in standard graphic formats (JPG, PNG), but at the same time, images are saved in an unknown format for me. WebP format. Okay, I downloaded the file, and now the question is, how to open webp?. In what program? That's what we'll talk about today.
What is WebP?
As one wise wikipedia says:
WebP(pronounced Weppy) is a new format for compressing graphic images with lossy and lossless quality of the original file.
Why do we need something new when there are old and familiar JPGs and PNGs? As the developers assure (and this is not who, but Google Inc itself), most modern images have been used on the Internet for more than ten years and are based on technologies from the last century. Here is how it turns out...
Now, technology has stepped forward a lot, and something needs to change. And so, Google engineers decided to check: is it possible increase the compression ratio of graphic formats (thereby allowing images to load even faster) even more while maintaining the existing visual quality..
As a result of work on the project, a new graphic image format - WebP. As the developers of the project assure, the new format significantly reduces the size of the image on the network, allowing sites to load even faster. And as you know, the faster the site loads, the better the attitude towards it from the side of search engines and, of course, from the side of users.
That's why, very soon I will share secret information with you :-), how I accelerated my blog (work on speeding up is still ongoing). You will learn several ways to optimize the loading of the site, so do not miss this article. I announced a new article to you, and it is time to find out how and why open webP file?
How to open WebP file?
Have you downloaded the webp file from the Internet and is it already on your computer? From the foregoing, you now know that this is a graphic image format and we will open it through the standard Windows viewer.
In order to implement this feature, you need to install an additional plugin in the operating system. All further actions have been personally tested by me on Windows 7 64-bit. But as the plugin developers assure, it should turn out open webp and on Windows XP (SP3) as well as Windows Vista.
1 Go to and download the plug-in for opening webp from the following link, which is shown in the screenshot. Scroll down the page a little and click on the following link to download the add-on to your computer
2 After the plugin is downloaded, you need to double-click to start the installation process. The following dialog box will open, where you need to click "Next"
4 In the dialog box that opens, click the "Typical" item
5 And in the final window, click the "Install" button to start the installation of the plugin
After the installation is completed, you will be prompted to go to the directory where two graphic files will be located - one in JPEG format and the other in WEBP format.
Click on them and rejoice, now you can easily view webp files in the standard Windows viewer.
That's all for me. I hope you find today's little tutorial helpful.
P.S. The other day I went to the post office again, this time for an Oldos winter overall for my little daughter Lisa, which was ordered from the online store. The order came quickly enough. The jumpsuit is just great. I'll be sure to take a picture and show you.
Also, two hydrometers (determine air humidity) from China should come soon. I’ll hang it in the room to monitor the microclimate, otherwise there is an air humidifier, but it doesn’t quite correctly (I think so) shows the humidity in the room.
An anniversary 500 comment by Nikolai () was left on the blog. For this, Nikolay receives a small prize of 50 rubles to his electronic wallet.
We all love to "walk" through the expanses of the Internet and visit certain sites. And it's no secret that when viewing a huge number of images of food, nature, screenshots from movies or video games, the loading of a website page can be delayed for a long time. This is especially noticeable on mobile devices or if there are many tabs open in the browser on the computer. Of course, no matter how beautiful and functional the web design is, visitors try to either interrupt the loading of images or simply leave the site.
And if the images themselves are huge in size (width-height)? There are not many of them on the village, but they are simply majestic (2K, 4K formats). After all, almost all of us want to see beautiful photos or the capabilities of graphics cards. What can we say, often, the entire web design is created entirely from images. Either these are stripes, then squares with a texture, then cliparts and so on.
In a word, images in large quantities or large sizes can be used in different ways and on a variety of sites. How can such a problem be solved and is it necessary? We will look at one of the methods that has been used in reality by many sites over the past years and, of course, we will figure out how Photoshop can help with this and whether it is necessary at all.
Begin…
Google to the rescue
The solution to the problem of image compression is varied and each person chooses for himself what is more convenient for him. There are a huge number of ways to reduce the size of an image without a clear deterioration in quality, but today we will focus on the WebP format.
It was created by Google back in 2010 specifically for improved image optimization. It works with all known formats and today in 2017 it is a very good alternative to PNG or JPEG. To visualize what we started our conversation about, let's compare the image quality in JPEG and WebP with the same compression percentage.
In the above example, there are practically no visual differences, more precisely, they are invisible at 70% compression. But at the same time the JPEG version is 49.8 Kb and the WebP version is 15 Kb, respectively, the compression percentage in the second case can be increased without fear for a large file size. Not so bad, considering that visually they are almost identical.
A reasonable question arises: will such images be opened and loaded on the site page in browsers and which ones. Since the WebP format was created by Google, then, accordingly, there is also support in Chrome, Yandex, Opera. In general, support is provided in 90% of browsers, including mobile versions. Unfortunately, there is no support in IE and Edge by default.
At the same time, it is important to understand that WebP is not and cannot, in any case, be perceived as a 100% replacement for PNG and JPEG. This format is only for browsers that can work with it, but you will undoubtedly have to have a different format for other browsers. On the other hand, there are always small polyfills, libraries that allow browsers to work with one or another “chip”. But more on that below.
JPEG (180 Kb)
PNG (213kb)
WebP (91kb)
Convert images toWebP
Option 1 -photoshop
The easiest way to work with WebP is, of course, Photoshop, for which Telegraphics has also created a special plug-in for different bit depths. After you install it (copy it to the folder with plugins), the application will have an opportunity in the menu " Save as…» select the WebP format from the drop-down list.
The dialog box allows you to adjust the quality with a slider, filtering, noise and sharpness. Please note that according to the attached readme file in the archive, it is stipulated that the functionality of the plugin in the Windows version is less than in the version for Mac OS.
In addition, the plug-in for Photoshop does not allow you to use " Save for Web…”, and there is no preview of the saved image, as is the case with JPEG. Therefore, until you save the file and open it for viewing, you will not be able to find out what happens and how big the file will be.
Option 2 -onlineconverter
Another conversion option is to use an online converter - Image online-convert . It works just as well as in Photoshop, but thanks to it it is faster and more convenient to batch convert files.
Embedding Image Files
As we said above, almost all browsers currently (mid-May 2017) support WebP by default. However, users' computers may have old versions of browsers installed or those that do not support the format. There are two convenient options for displaying images in WebP.
- WebPJS polyfill (library) that will handle the version of the browser used and change images. The author's page shows and describes where to insert the necessary code blocks on the site's pages.
- Picturefill , also a small library, works on a different principle.
What is the essential difference between both libraries? In the first case img tag does not change on the pages, you just change the file extension from JPEG to WebP. In the second case, the WebP format is used to represent the image, if it is supported, and if not, it is replaced by JPEG. In this case, you will have to change img tags on pages, Automatic format conversion happens on the fly, so it's hard to say which one works better.
You can also use the code for the .htaccess file, which will check if the browser supports WebP and, if the answer is negative, will replace the image with a JPEG. In this case, all images must be in the same folder and the same size (width + height).
Thus, a web designer and developers can use the WebP format if the project, site, is oriented to modern browsers. Then it will work and be displayed on the pages.
How to see fileswebp on desktop
Initially, Windows does not support this format, and if Telegraphics created a plug-in for Photoshop, then Google released a plug-in to be able to see image files in the usual Windows Photo Viewer. This plugin also creates image previews in File Explorer for the Microsoft Office Picture Manager. The download is shown below.
The developers of PaintShop Pro, IrfanView, Picasa, XnView, Gimp, Paint.NET and others have also created support for WebP, which you can download directly from their official sites.
Who needs it? Pros and cons
Since we have stipulated more than once that the WebP image file format cannot be a full-fledged replacement for JPEG, it is reasonable for many of us sooner or later to ask whether this format is needed at all and in what cases its use is justified.
If the project involves the use of a large number of images of different sizes and resolutions, then, of course, you need to enter this format.
PNG (124 Kb)
WebP (78kb)
In terms of browser support, every year, if not half a year, in the world as a whole, old versions are becoming a thing of the past, just like old versions of Windows. Almost no longer used XP, Vista, 7. Similarly, outdated browsers, especially since almost all of them are updated automatically if installed. Accordingly, there is no WebP support in isolated cases, which may not be so critical for the project.
On the other hand, there are libraries and the ability to use JPEG dubs and convert on the fly.
However, it must be remembered that there is no widespread use of this format, therefore, it is necessary to have JPEG variations on hand. And here again the duality: if the browsers of site visitors have support for WebP, then why not offer them an almost instant download of something that will take noticeably longer to load for others? Indeed, in general, this will only positively affect the conversion of the site.
Another plus - transparency support (alpha channel), i.e. similar to the PNG format. And if in PNG the picture weighs more than 7 Mb, then in WebP it is about 700 Kb.
Where is usedWebP
From the first time, visiting this or that site, it is impossible to say with certainty whether WebP is used or not. The thing is that images can be converted to JPEG. But on the other hand, you can determine exactly where WebP is on the page, and where JPEG is, through the developer console. For example, the video game portal Stevivor converts screenshots, maps and large images exactly to WebP, to preserve quality and small size. There are a lot of video games, guides for each single game too, even more pictures - the use is 100% justified.
Telegram saves sticker pictures in WebP format, which are so popular both on the desktop version of the social network and on mobile.
There are a couple more features of the WebP format. Compression settings do not exactly repeat those in JPEG. Don't expect 50% JPEG quality to match 50% WebP quality. In the case of WebP, the quality drops quite rapidly, so it's better to start with the highest values and gradually reduce them. Another plus point for WebP is the ability to add an alpha channel mask, just like in PNG. Unlike the competing format, you can compress the WebP image to one-tenth the size of a PNG image. This is really what makes WebP stand out.
One real life example: an 880Kb PNG file (24-bit image with alpha channel) was compressed to 41Kb - 95% compression! Although this is not a common situation, the possibilities of WebP are visible. 
The difference in texture quality. (Full version)
To further reduce the file size, we can choose not to include metadata by unchecking the “Save Metadata” checkbox in the save window of the image editor. For even greater results, you can choose “lossy alpha channel”.
The quality settings for the alpha channel apply to the image itself. For example, 50% image quality will have 50% alpha channel quality. In our testing, we expected distortion at the edge of the mask, but there were also noticeable changes to the entire image. Of course, this is an option to further reduce the size, but then you should carefully monitor the quality of the image.
Also, notice the unwanted stripes in the alpha channel. 
The difference is in the quality of the alpha channel. (Full version)
We were very excited when we discovered the Plugin for Photoshop to support WebP. With it, you can easily adjust the quality of WebP images. However, the plug-in interface leaves much to be desired. At this time, you cannot view the image to evaluate the quality settings. 
WebP Plugin for Photoshop.
As a workaround, you can compare files in Google Chrome. Opening the Save dialog box is also awkward in Photoshop. To do this, we have assigned a hotkey so that we do not constantly use the dialog box. Despite the inconvenience, it's still worth it.
With excellent compression ratios, good quality, and an alpha channel, WebP looks like a good contender to current image formats.
Despite promising test results, there is no clear leader among all formats. Although WebP performs impressively among other formats, JPEG and 8-bit PNG are sometimes still better than WebP in terms of size and/or quality. Therefore, we advise you to do your own testing before you transfer all your images to WebP, because it may not exactly meet your requirements.
Implementation
Having determined that WebP could be an effective tool for us, we turned to our developers to implement this format. WebP is fully supported by Chrome, Opera, Opera Mini, Android Browser, and Chrome for Android browsers. Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari are not fully supported, although Firefox has a history with WebP. Luckily, there are several ways to display WebP in these browsers.We found 3 ways to support this format. It was important for us to understand that we are using the best tool for page size, keeping in mind that speed index is a key metric and taking into account any necessary Javascript polyfills.
We ran 4 tests to determine which format works best for us. The first one used a JPEG as a reference, and the other 3 used the approaches described below. We used a JPEG image and a WebP image of the same quality (269Kb JPEG and 52Kb WebP).
In the second test, we included WebPJS , a 67Kb polyfill created by Dominik Homberger. It provides WebP support in all modern browsers, even IE6 and above. The polyfill is convenient because you don't need to change the img tag in your code, you just need to change the image extension from .jpg and .png to .webp.
The next approach was to use Picturefill , a polyfill that allows you to use a tag even when it's not fully supported. With it, you can use WebP to serve and, if the format is not supported by the browser, give it a JPEG, PNG or other format.
The last test was to use the .htaccess file on the server to implement WebP. This variant was designed by Vincent Orbach.
Using it, the code in .htaccess looks to see if there is a WebP version of every image on the page. If the browser supports WebP and a WebP image is available, it is served, not a JPEG or PNG. This is convenient and you do not need to change the markup of the web page.
After reviewing the results, we concluded that the WebP polyfill (from the second test) is the most lightweight solution that works in all browsers, but we were not satisfied with the Speed Index metric when using this method. The WebP polyfill renders images worse than the JPEG benchmark and worse than non-iOS implementations. We tend to use this implementation due to better browser support.
It was also noticed that on iOS devices, files took up 100Kb more than on other devices. We found that in iOS5.1 in both IE 8 and IE9, the WebP image was loaded 3 times. Although the extra 2 times is not good, it still took up less space than the JPEG equivalent. We haven't tested this on newer versions of iOS, it may have been fixed there already.
A look into the future
Our team decided to implement the method used in test 3, using a tag to serve WebP images to browsers that support them and serve JPEG or PNG to those that don't know anything about WebP.We believe this is the best way to progressively enhance and supports serving the image in a browser-supported format.
Initially, we used the polyfill method, but we felt that the result would not be ideal.
WebP won't completely replace JPEG or PNG yet, but it will be a very cool tool in your arsenal.
From the translator: The authors used iOS 5.1 because at the time of testing, the WebPageTest.org site only supported this version of the system. IE8 and IE9 to see how WebP will work in such older browsers + those browsers are still important to their clients. Now there are already a lot of online versions of converters.
is an image format developed by Google in 2010. It was created as an alternative to the PNG and JPG formats. With WebP, you can create images that are much smaller than traditional JPG and PNG formats without compromising image quality.
Why is WebP needed?
WebP is a very useful image format as it offers both performance optimizations and rich functionality. Unlike other formats, WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression, as well as transparency and animation.
| WebP | PNG | JPG | gif | |
| Lossy compression | + | + | + | — |
| Lossless compression | + | + | + | + |
| Transparency | + | + | — | + |
| Animation | + | — | — | + |
Even with this rich functionality, the WebP format provides significantly smaller file sizes than its alternatives. In a comparative study of these image formats, it was found that lossy compressed WebP images were on average 30% smaller than JPG, and lossless WebP images were on average 25% smaller than PNG.
How to Convert Images to WebP
There are already several tools to easily convert JPG, PNG and other file formats to WebP.
Online converters to WebP
- Squoosh- a tool for converting and comparing image formats from Google
- Online-Convert.com- online converter
Command Line Tools for WebP
While this is quite a lot, it's not enough to prevent fallback for unsupported browsers. Otherwise, all the same, some users will not see the image.
Images can be backed up using the element
To provide an alternate image source, we use
At the element
- type: MIME type of the source file;
- srcset: Path to the image file. You can use several files to display one image of different sizes (see )
- sizes: List of sizes for each source file (see article above)
- media: A media query to determine which source will be used to display the image.
In addition to the elements , as a fallback for browsers that don't support multiple file formats through the element
