After yesterday’s article that Google Chrome is preparing to abandon the JPEG-XL image format, a Google engineer has now presented his reasons for abandoning this next-generation image format. Phoronix reports: As noted yesterday, a patch is pending for Google Chrome/Chromium to drop the still experimental (behind the feature flag) support for the JPEG-XL image format in their web browser. The patch notes that Chrome 110 and later do not recommend support for JPEG-XL images. No arguments were presented for this termination, which is surprising given that JPEG-XL is still very young in its life cycle and enjoys growing industry interest and support.
A Google engineer’s comment on the Chromium JPEG-XL issue tracker tonight with the reasons: “Thanks everyone for your comments and feedback on JPEG XL. We will be removing the JPEG XL code and flag from Chromium for the following reasons:
– Experimental flags and code should not remain indefinitely
– There is not enough interest from the entire ecosystem to continue experimenting with JPEG XL
– The new image format does not provide sufficient additional benefits over existing formats to justify its inclusion as a default
– Removing the flag and code in M110 reduces the maintenance burden and allows us to focus on improving existing formats in Chrome”
