You’ve probably noticed it while right-clicking an image to save it for a project. Instead of the familiar .jpg or .png, your browser tries to hand you a file ending in .avif. It’s annoying if your old photo viewer can’t open it, but there is a massive technical reason why this is happening. Basically, the internet is getting a facelift, and AVIF format is the tool doing the heavy lifting.
AVIF stands for AV1 Image File Format.
It isn't just another random file extension cooked up to make life difficult. It’s a derivative of the AV1 video codec, developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). This group includes heavy hitters like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Netflix. They wanted a way to make the web faster without making it look like a pixelated mess from 1998.
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The Massive Problem with JPEG
JPEG has been the king of the hill since 1992. Think about that. In tech years, 1992 is the Bronze Age. While JPEG is incredibly compatible, it’s also incredibly inefficient by modern standards. When you try to crush a JPEG down to a small file size, you get "artifacts"—those weird blocks and blurry halos around edges.
It’s ugly.
Then came WebP, which Google pushed hard. It was better, sure. But AVIF is the next evolution. It uses more advanced compression algorithms that can identify patterns in an image more effectively than anything we’ve seen before. Honestly, the difference in file size is staggering. We are talking about taking a 1MB JPEG and turning it into a 50KB AVIF without losing the detail in the highlights or the texture of the shadows.
Why the compression actually works
Traditional compression works by looking at blocks of pixels. AVIF is smarter. It uses "intra-frame" coding from the AV1 video standard. It predicts what a group of pixels should look like based on the surrounding area.
Netflix was one of the first big players to shout about this. They have to serve millions of tiny movie posters to millions of different devices. If they can shave 50% off the size of every thumbnail, they save petabytes of bandwidth. That translates to faster load times for you and lower server costs for them. It’s a win-win that actually works in the real world.
What is AVIF format doing differently?
If we get under the hood, AVIF supports things that JPEG could only dream of.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is the big one. While JPEG is mostly stuck in 8-bit color depth, AVIF supports 10-bit and 12-bit color at full resolution. This means over a billion colors. If you’ve ever seen a sunset in a digital photo and noticed "banding"—those ugly stripes where the orange meets the blue—that’s a color depth issue. AVIF eliminates that.
It also handles transparency. For years, if you wanted a transparent background, you had to use PNG. The problem? PNGs are huge. They are "lossless," which is great for quality but terrible for mobile data plans. AVIF gives you the transparency of a PNG with the file size of a highly compressed photo.
- Lossy compression: Good for photos where you want tiny sizes.
- Lossless compression: Good for logos or graphics where every pixel must be perfect.
- Animations: Yes, it can even replace those bloated, ancient GIFs.
The Compatibility Hurdle (It’s Getting Better)
For a couple of years, using AVIF was a gamble. Chrome and Firefox jumped on board early, but Apple was the holdout. That changed recently. With the release of iOS 16 and macOS Ventura, Safari finally invited AVIF to the party.
Now, roughly 93% of global browsers support it.
But what about the other 7%? This is where "content negotiation" comes in. Smart web developers don't just hard-code an AVIF image. They use the <picture> tag in HTML. This tells the browser: "Hey, try to load this AVIF first. If you're too old to understand that, just show the WebP. If you're really ancient, here's a JPEG."
It’s a safety net.
Real-World Performance: The Stats
Cloudinary, a major image management platform, did some extensive testing. They found that AVIF consistently outperformed WebP by about 20% and JPEG by up to 50% in terms of data savings for the same visual quality.
In a world where Google’s "Core Web Vitals" determine where your site ranks, speed is everything. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is a metric that measures how fast the main content of a page loads. Since the main content is usually a big hero image, switching that image to AVIF can literally boost your SEO rankings.
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It’s not just a nerd thing. It’s a business thing.
The Trade-off: CPU Power
Nothing is free. The cost of AVIF is "encoding time."
Because the math required to compress an image this efficiently is so complex, it takes longer for a computer to create an AVIF than a JPEG. If you’re uploading one photo to a blog, you won't notice. If you’re a giant like Amazon processing millions of user-uploaded product shots every hour, that extra CPU time adds up to real electricity costs.
However, for the end user—the person browsing the site—the "decoding" (viewing) is fast enough that you’ll never notice a lag. Modern chips are now coming with hardware-level AV1 decoding, which makes this point almost moot for newer smartphones and laptops.
How to actually use AVIF today
You don't need to be a software engineer to start using this.
If you use WordPress, the core software has supported AVIF since version 6.5. You just upload a file, and it handles the rest. For designers using Photoshop, you might need a plugin depending on your version, but newer releases handle it natively.
There’s also Squoosh.app. It’s a free tool by the Chrome team. You drop a photo in, toggle the settings, and you can see a side-by-side comparison of your original JPEG versus a new AVIF. It’s the best way to see the "magic" for yourself. You’ll see the file size drop from 2MB to 150KB, and your eyes won't be able to tell the difference.
What most people get wrong about AVIF
People think it’s just for the web.
While that’s the primary use case right now, AVIF is a legitimate container for high-end photography. Because it supports 12-bit color and HDR, it’s actually a better archival format than the JPEGs your camera spits out. Some high-end smartphones are already experimenting with saving photos in AV1-based formats to save storage space without ruining the shots you took on vacation.
Also, don't confuse AVIF with HEIC (the format iPhones use). HEIC is great, but it’s plagued by licensing fees. Companies have to pay to use it. AVIF is royalty-free. That is the "secret sauce" that ensures AVIF will win in the long run. The tech industry loves anything that is both high-quality and free to implement.
Moving Forward with Modern Images
If you run a website, or even if you're just a digital hoarder, it’s time to stop fearing the .avif extension. It is objectively the best balance of quality and size we have ever had.
Start by auditing your most visited pages. Take your heaviest images—the ones that make your mobile site feel sluggish—and run them through a converter. You don't have to convert your entire library overnight. Just start with the big stuff.
Check your analytics after a month. You'll likely see a slight dip in bounce rates because people aren't staring at a blank white screen waiting for a 3MB header image to load over a spoty 4G connection.
The JPEG era isn't over yet—it's too deeply embedded in our digital DNA—but the AVIF format is clearly the successor waiting in the wings. It’s more efficient, it looks better, and it costs nothing to adopt.
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Next Steps for Implementation:
- Test your current site: Use Google PageSpeed Insights to see if "Serve images in next-gen formats" is a recommendation for your URL.
- Convert a sample: Use a tool like Squoosh or an online converter to transform your five largest site images into AVIF.
- Check compatibility: Ensure your hosting environment or Content Delivery Network (CDN) supports AVIF delivery; most major ones like Cloudflare or Akamai already do.
- Update your workflow: If you’re a creator, check if your export settings in apps like Lightroom or Canva allow for AVIF output to save local storage and upload time.