FLIF – Free Lossless Image Format (flif.info)

Article summary

FLIF is a novel lossless image format that outperforms other formats such as PNG, WebP, and JPEG 2000 in terms of compression ratio. It is designed to work well on any kind of image and supports progressive decoding, making it suitable for responsive web design. FLIF development has stopped as it has been superseded by FUIF and JPEG XL. The format is royalty-free and its reference implementation is available under the LGPLv3 license.

Main themes

• image compression
• lossless formats
• royalty-free licensing
• browser support
• responsive web design
• archival and library work

What commenters say

• The adoption of FLIF may be hindered by the lack of support from major browser vendors such as Apple and Google.
• The LGPLv3 license of the FLIF reference implementation may pose a problem for its adoption in certain contexts, such as signed executables.
• Some commenters argue that the LGPLv3 license is not restrictive and can be used in proprietary codebases without issues.
• Others point out that lossless compression is not always the best choice for end-users, especially when a lossy format can provide a smaller file size.
• The technical advantages of FLIF, such as its compression ratio and progressive decoding, make it a suitable choice for certain use cases, such as image archiving.
• The need for a lossless format is still present, especially in fields such as archival and library work, where preserving image quality is crucial.
• Some commenters disagree with the claim that FLIF beats other formats in all categories, pointing out that it is a lossless format and therefore cannot compete with lossy formats in terms of compression ratio.