U-turn: Google wants to bring JPEG XL back to Chrome
Three years after its removal, Google wants to re-integrate JPEG XL into Chrome. Previously, Safari and Firefox, among others, had changed their positions.
(Image: heise medien)
Google wants to bring back support for the JPEG XL image format to Chrome. As Rick Byers writes on behalf of the Chrome Architecture Technology Leads (ATLs) in the Chromium mailing list, contributions to the integration of a performant and memory-safe JPEG XL decoder into Chromium would now be welcomed. The prerequisite for standard activation is a commitment to long-term maintenance and fulfillment of the usual launch criteria.
The announcement marks nothing less than a complete U-turn. At the end of 2022, Google had removed the experimental JPEG XL implementation from Chrome and Chromium with the reasoning that there was not enough interest in the image format across the entire ecosystem. The decision met with massive criticism from developers and users at the time. Jon Sneyers, co-developer of JPEG XL, suspected an internal conflict between JPEG XL proponents and representatives of the competing Google formats AVIF and WebP behind the move.
Since then, however, the situation has fundamentally changed. Apple has integrated support for JPEG XL in Safari—with limitations; Firefox has implemented experimental support in the Nightly version and is considering integration into the main version as soon as a Rust-based decoder is available. Furthermore, developer signals such as bug upvotes, proposals for the Interop project, and survey data continue to show strong interest in the format. Another important milestone was the recent announcement by the PDF Association to include JPEG XL as the preferred image format in the PDF specification, especially for HDR content.
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Rust implementation as a memory-safe alternative
Last week, a corresponding request for the integration of JPEG XL support into Chromium/Blink was already submitted, which also provides for support for JPEG XL animations. This initially uses the established libjxl library. However, for the memory-safe decoder required by Google, the implementation written in Rust jxl-rs could also be used.
JPEG XL was developed as the successor to the outdated JPEG format and is based on a combination of the Free Lossless Image Format (FLIF) and Google's PIK project. Full ISO standardization took place in October 2021. The format scores with support for high dynamic range, extended color spaces, ultra-high-resolution images with over a billion pixels, and up to 4099 channels with 32 bits per channel.
The original issue ticket for JPEG XL decoding has also been reopened. Whether and when JPEG XL will actually land in Chrome by default now depends on the community and the submitted implementations.
(fo)
