Netflix is looking for JPEG alternative that has better compression efficiently, widely supported, and has wide set of features. To get one they start developing AVIF with Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Mozilla under Alliance for Open Media (AOM). According to Netflix, AVIF is a great alternative to JPEG widely used by people all across the globe and shared some samples prove their claims are right. AVIF in full means “AV1 Image File Format” is importantly used for storing animated and still images compress with AV1 in the HEIF file format. AVIF is competing with WebP image format developed by Google. The same file format is supported by Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Android. AVIF is under development and still not supported by popular web browser. Recently, Microsoft released AV1 Video Extension to bring support for AVIF support to Windows 10 May 2019 update. File Explorer in Windows 10 show thumbnails for images with AVI image format. You can also open images with same file format in MS Paint.
To enable AVIF Support in Firefox
In case, you want to enable support for AV1 images file format in Firefox browser, then here’s what you need to do:
- You need to be running the latest version of browser i.e. Firefox Nightly v77
- After that, you need to visit: about:config and in Account preferences page, click on the “Accept the Risk and continue“ In the search bar copy-paste or type image.avif.enabled and click on the toggle button to change it settings from False to True. You can use these AVID sample files provided by Netflix to confirm if AVIF support is enabled or not in Firefox. Visit this page, download the sample AVIF file to your PC and try to open it. Thanks, Techdows for the news!
