The .webp extension is used by a file format developed by Google to reduce the size of the images.
The pictures with the .webp extension although they are very small in size, they offer very good quality as they are designed to make web pages faster. They are usually used by developers.
What are WebP files?
The WebP format (pronounced Weppy) is the fraternal project of WebM video technology using the VP8 video encoder developed by On2 Technologies. Google acquired On2 Technologies on 19 February 2010 and then released the WebP format in September of the same year.
60% to 65% of bytes on most websites are images, so Google came up with the idea of creating a free, open source format that stores files with compression and without significant loss of quality.
Maintaining quality but reducing the size of images, web pages load faster, use less bandwidth and save energy from the battery - especially on mobile devices, when of course websites use WebP images.
WebP format uses "predictive" compression to encode an image. It checks the values in adjacent pixels to predict the values of the next. It then encodes only the difference between them.
This allows multiple pixels to be copied multiple times in a single file. Storing only the data that changes between each block reduces storage compared to PNG and JPEG formats. You can learn more from the official WebP compression techniques page.
WebP images are 26% smaller than PNG files and up to 34% smaller than JPEG files with structural similarity or SSIM.
How do I open WebP images?
Because WebP was developed by Google and is free, it is already integrated into many applications and software which you may already have on your computer. Most programs tourwebmasters already have the required plugin to handle this format.
WebP images are designed for the web and can not be easily distinguished.
You can save a WebP image to your computer the same way you would any other image on the web. Right-click on the image and click on "Save Image as."
Select where you want the file to be saved and click on "Save".
If you have any of the Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Opera apps, all you have to do is double click on the image and it opens with your default browser.
You can edit WebP files using shared graphics software, such as GIMP, the Imagemagick or Microsoft Paint, which inherently opens WebP files by default. In Windows, right-click on the image, point to "Open With", and then select the program with which you want to edit it.
IrfanView, the Windows photo viewer and Photoshop require plugins to open WebP images.
