The PNG format...


... and Micro$oft Internet Explorer

Last week I was watching this blog on a Windows machine. Jezus! I totally forgot M$ doesn't support the Portable Network Graphics format aka PNG (pronounce as "ping").

For those who don't know PNG: It's a format that supports alpha transparency. Although it's a better format than GIF, most web designers still use the GIF format. GIF only supports binary transparency (this means transparent or not transparent). Another important fact is that software companies like Adobe, who provide GIF support in their applications, have to pay royalty fees for the GIF format. PNG on the other hand is free.

So, now decide for yourself what's the best format:

GIF: 8-bit color (256 colors), binary transparency, loss compression
PNG-24: 48-bit color (281,474,976,710,656 colors), alpha transparency, loss-less compression

You cab find a more detailed description of PNG right here .

If you are a web designer or you just think M$ should support this format standardly, you can sign this petition (already 17453 signatures as I speak).

The thing is that Internet Explorer will display any PNG format, but without transparency. Here's a screenshot from my blog (I used PNG for my Category images):


Posted: Tue - September 7, 2004 at 08:08 AM             |

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