> Some websites use looping videos and call them GIFs

That’s exactly what they’re doing. Just used the web inspector on one of their GIFs. Imgur does the same thing.

Not from here. Here's one I got from their front page. https://j.gifs.com/qjOKXp.gif

The content-type response header is image/gif.

Interestingly you can change the `.gif` to `.mp4` and you get a video _with_ audio.

webm seems to be the modern replacement for GIFs in browsers. I would suspect gifs.com supports them. Somehow their site is buggy for me atm so I could not test it.

I wish WebM could be the standard. GIFs shouldn't even be used in 2024. It's a format of the past, with no upsides.

I usually only need GIFs for GitHub readmes. GitHub doesn't support WebM autoplay videos.

In texting, Telegram has introduced WebM stickers so there's at least a choice there.

WebM is just a container format, though it's usually used with VP9 and opus, and is functionally equivalent to using any other kind of actual video.

Animated GIFs remain quite useful for non-video animations where you don't want lossy compression, and want to use other GIF features like transparency. Animated PNGs are a potential replacement, and support all of the features of GIFs along with 24-bit color, but software support remains lackluster.

Note that Github does support the slightly better animated WebP... as long as you change the file extension to .gif :)

Whoa! Really!? I gotta try that!

The extension trick works in all sorts of place. And in reverse too. You can often upload an animated GIF to sites that don't support it by just changing the extension to .jpg or .png.

Where are WebM files used? Safari browsers/Apple don't even support it.

They do now. At least on desktop. But it is a more recent feature (within the last few years, I can’t remember when exactly).

MP4 with H.264 is still king for compatibility, but WebM with VP9 isn’t as bespoke as it once was.

According to https://caniuse.com/webm, desktop Safari is green since 2022, while iOS Safari is green since two months ago.

Aka "gifs with sound" - I always asked myself who came up with this absurd term ;)

They do have an option to download GIFs