Giant company Google, which is perhaps best known for the search engine of the same name, takes up the fight against JPEG when they launch their own image format, WebP. According to the official Google Chrome blog, images will be converted to the new file format without losing quality further, but the average file size will be 39% lower. The figures are based on a test in which Google chose a million random images from the Internet and convert them to WebP. 

The format is based on picture compress codex  VP8, which, like JPEG will often give some loss in image quality during compression. Nevertheless, the reduction in file sizes cause the bandwidth is better utilized, since approximately 65% of an average website consists of images, according to Google. They have also developed a format that allows users to store meta-data in the image, such as camera make, shutter speed and aperture if it is a photograph in question. 

Illustration from Google that displays JPEG (left) set against WebP (right). 

Google has posted several examples that illustrate how the file size is reduced while the image quality is the same. But since no browsers currently can view WebP images are sample images are available actually in the file format PNG. It has launched a separate tool that can convert images to WebP, and there are also plans to incorporate support for the new file format in an upcoming version of Google Chrome browser.

"for some reason this page got some weird colouring trying to fix it"