Disadvantage of GIF
- Using too many GIFs on a single webpage can slow down the page speed.
- Once a GIF is created, it cannot be edited again.
- Limited color depth (256 bit) compared to other image formats, resulting in blocky images.
- A high-speed internet connection is still required for optimal loading times, despite the small file size.
What is a GIF File?
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. GIF is a digital file format developed by CompuServe in 1987 to compress images and short animations without any loss of information at the time, it was popular due to its support of 256 different colors, which was considered significant. GIF uses a compression algorithm called LZW, which was invented by Lempel, Ziv, and Welch, and allowed for file sizes to be minimized. However, in 1994, Unisys Corporation, which owned a patent for LZW, caused controversy when they sought royalties from users. Even though Unisys Corporation’s patents related to LZW, the compression algorithm used in GIF, expired by 2004, the controversy over royalties led to the development of an alternative to GIF, the portable network graphics (PNG) format, which offered a wider range of colors and different compression techniques. While JPEG is commonly used to transmit high-quality images, it usually results in larger file sizes. However, despite the competition, GIF remains widely used and popular.