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Where does PNG stand in this timeline?
I think PNG is a good format even today. It's lossless compressed, so there isn't that much you can squeeze out of that with new algorithms as you can out of lossy formats with new and smarter approaches.
Sadly, PNG is being terribly misused on the internet too. What it's good for is simple drawn graphics, which it can compress to oblivion. So it's perfect for screenshots of say, your operating system's windows. I took a sshot as I'm typing this, and it came out as 190 kB. Not bad.
But what it's so commonly used for, is people taking screenshots of photos such as from Instagram, and then reposting them. So instead of a tiny and shitty 50 kB IG picture, you get a 1.5MB PNG screenshots. Some then recompress it to a 1.5MB JPG for "maximum quality" when they realise they can't upload PNG to photo sites.
I also very often encounter huge PNG photos with their extensions changed to JPG, and I don't know how or why that is happening.
This one really grinds my gears. Why do so many people insist on sharing text by taking a picture instead of pasting the text? Or better yet, just linking to the original? It's such a waste of bandwidth :(
Probably people uploading to sites that limit extensions thinking they're clever by just changing the extension, or being straight up wrong in thinking the extension changing actually changes the file type.
The sites might not bother to check the metadata, and anything worth any salt that displays the image will ignore the extension anyway.
That sounds logical, but on most operating systems these days the extension is hidden, and/or you need to go through some hoops to change it. So I would think that most people who think that wouldn't even know how to change it.
But more importantly, where do those PNGs come from in the first place? Sure, some are clearly screenshots such as of IG or TT, but there are tons of large PNG images that are clearly photos from cameras that someone just took and resaved as png (and later, or someone else, then renamed to jpg).
I could understand that happening occasionally for a bunch of reasons, but I've encountered this so many times, it's pretty bizarre.
Btw it's something you might not even notice if you aren't using e.g. an image viewer that uses a different icon or background based on actual image type.
I suppose another solution might be that it falls under those lines, but some misbehaving services where they're uploaded are giving out improper filenames and not confirming the type.
Though I can't imagine many of those being incredibly popular, or, it's just that images are recycled for so long that eventually many of them hit such a site in their lifetimes.
After reading through more comments in this discussion, maybe I have my answer, at least partially. A lot of people here suggest to use extensions and other ways to convert webp from the web to... PNG.
And then that PNG gets shared further...
Oh gawd if that's why so many pngs are on the net... What a way to take a good idea and completely fuck it up. Now instead of a 2MB jpeg or 0.5MB webp we deal with 10MB pngs 🤦♂️
Anyway here's my take on it
It supports features such as lossless editing and transparency but the compression is pretty bad.
It's lossless, it's meant for 2D and drawn graphics. Can't do that much with lossless compression.
It's still bad compared to modern lossless algorithms. PNG is very old and even though PNG encoders have evolved, it is still fundamentally a decade behind modern lossless compression algorithms.
For example: JPEG XL in lossless mode compresses at least 30% better than PNG.
Also, PNG is not actually lossless in many cases. PNG only supports RGB colorspaces. If you try to store anything that's not in an RGB colorspace (e.g. a frame of a video) in a PNG, you will lose some color information as colorspace conversion is not lossless. Example of someone running into this issue: https://stackoverflow.com/q/35399677
JPEG XL supports non-RGB colorspaces so you don't have this problem.
Okay but that difference is not as critical as with jpg, which are also more abundant. The bigger problem with png is that people use it for things it's not meant or designed for - frame of a video being case in point.
If anything, it just proves how lacking we are in other image formats, when we keep shoehorning clipart formats like png and gif into other duties. Well not lacking as in not having them, but not using them.
There's no real reason why you shouldn't use PNG for a frame of video. I'm not talking about using it as a video format, I'm talking about extracting a frame from a video and sending it off to an editor for inclusion in another video or image.
As a user, I would expect that I could use the most popular lossless image format if I want to losslessly share a frame from a movie with someone.
Of course I do agree that we need adoption of other image formats. We really should not still be cramming everything in PNGs or JPGs in 2023.
There is, exactly because png is made for strict rgb colorspace. Especially today when videos can be in HDR and with all kinds of color correction shenanigans, so which you won't get back once you try to put the PNG back into the video.
But I'm not a video editor, so I don't know what still format is best suited for this. I imagine real editors can deal with it, and for regular people who just make screenshots for memes, it's good enough. As I said, png is still a good enough format, but let's not use it for stuff like converting webp photos for further sharing.
PNG compresses like nothing else when it comes to graphs, text, UI elements, digital drawings, comics, screenshots from apps etc. And doesn't suffer from "mosquito" artifacts and other .jpg nonsense. It was never meant to be used for photographs and other statistically "noisy" images for which .jpg works much better.
Isn't it funny how the internet is full of Instagram screenshots in PNG, and Twitter screenshots in JPG?
It feels like some extra-dimensional aliens are fucking with us and making everything backwards.