I've noticed that GIFS with several frames in them tend to be quite large files. I like that these use dithering, which can reduce the file size. Ideally it would be not larger than 2-3 lightweight photos juxtaposed together, and less than 300KB. I also wish there was a pause button on them because sometimes reading articles on the web with them persistent can get tedious. I suppose disabling images can mediate that, or copying the text to another document.
"In Web Browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox): Install browser extensions like GIF Scrubber on Chrome or GIF Blocker on Firefox, which add playback controls to any web page.
On iPhone/iPad: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion, and turn off Animated Images to pause all GIFs in Safari.
On Mac: Go to System Settings > Accessibility > Display, and toggle off Animated Images.
In PowerPoint: Press the 1 key on your keyboard during a presentation to pause the GIF."
There's been a move towards using MP4 files instead of GIFs because the filesize is smaller, despite MP4 being patent encumbered.
I found APNG suffer the same issue, but there may be some workarounds:
https://share.google/aimode/X1Q5rp3z2tEbtDSPf
"Yes, but not natively just by using a standard <img> tag in web browsers. Because native APNGs play continuously like a traditional GIF, you need to use one of the following methods to pause them: [1, 2, 3, 4]
1. The Canvas Method (Best for Web Controls) To add play/pause functionality, you cannot use an <img> tag. Instead, you need to render the APNG onto an HTML <canvas> element and control it using a JavaScript library like apng-js. This provides precise, video-like control over the frames. [1, 2, 3, 4]
2. The Cover Method (Simplest Fallback) If you just want to freeze an APNG on its first frame, you can layer a static .png of the first frame directly over the APNG. When you uncover or hide the static image, the underlying APNG will be revealed and play as normal. [1]
3. Use CSS Animation Alternatives [1] If you are designing the animation yourself, an alternative is to build it as a single static image (a filmstrip of all frames side-by-side) and animate it using CSS background-position. This allows you to pause the image natively using the CSS animation-play-state property. [1, 2, 3]"
there are vp9 and av1 as well
for gifs? it seems an image format would be more backward compatible with older devices. Edit: by image format, i meant lightweight animation without a video codec.
The sites like tenor/giphy/klipy all convert to multiple media formats and then have meta embed properties with multiple formats.
Sites/apps like Discord sometimes consume the mp4 instead of gif or webp when embedding (and in Discord's case they're not hotlinking, I believe they're running it through their own media proxy service).
For example, <https://klipy.com/gifs/begone-witch> turns into <video> (with ARIA GIF label!) and src <https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/external/kQT1eR3Sa6g3mZ_...>
7.1 MB gif => 679 KB mp4
hi initramfs, i responded to robottoaster who referenced patent encumbered mp4, as alternatives there are vp9 and av1.
image formats are more backward compatible, but at some point one has to ask, how low do you want to go? vp9 plays on iphones from 2020 and android phones from 2010. I think animated avif files are basically av1 video files, like animated webp is vp8/9 video.
Animated gif is playable anywhere, but 10x bigger. For a wiggle blog or website I'd provide animated png alongside anaglyph, or anaglyph only.
There is also animated Jpeg XL *.jxl files for the bleeding edge. It's a pure image format but support is not there yet.
hi fseifken,
Thanks for the response and I agree there are benefits to newer formats. I actually do prefer newer codecs when I am using a newer system, such as AV1 (I actually wrote a blog post on that yesterday https://inavoyage.blogspot.com/2026/06/720p-on-384kbps-how-h...), and recall avif, but forgot about it.
I think .avif sounds preferrable since it is single frames able to play animations using the same library as av01. I am curious how much CPU usage it needs for a just a few frames. A Pentium 1 might not be able to play it easily, but I imagine a dual core Intel E6400 wouldn't have much of an issue, even if it is 20 years old.
Yeah, basically the only reason I suggested older support was because it was just a couple frames (maybe 5 tops), as opposed to something that uses hundreds or thousands of frames.