PNG vs GIF (regarding browser support/compatibility only)

Hey guys!

I like the PNG format for images because it is lossless. It's actually the format I use on my website for the logo and other small images.

But I read an article at alistapart (this forum wont let me post a link to the article so here is a quote from it):

So is there any truth to this? Does the PNG format have bad browser support?

Should I convert all my PNGs to GIFs instead?

Thanks guys!

 

No, not really. But GIFs are mostly used for websites.

 

PNGs with transparency won't work in IE6, thats about it.

 

The transparency of a PNG won't work in IE6. It shows a light blue background where it's supposed to be transparent. However, there are some simple javascripts you can add to your site to overcome the problem.

 

Yeah like said above, all you need is some simple javascript and PNGs with transparency works in IE6.

However, I always use .gif format on my images for the web (unless it's a real photo of course), no need for anything else. Except when I want transparency, then PNG is the choice.

Oh and another thing, when I had PNG images (without transparency) on a site before, I noticed the colors where lighter in IE then in FF (or the opposite) for some reason.

 

PNG rulez!!
gif has a realy bad quality..
if you have problems with PNG&IE, then just google about it and you'll find many solutions

 

It's a gamma correction problem, in the past drove me crazy like no other.
You can read more about the problem here or simply google it.

http://hsivonen.iki.fi/png-gamma/

I wont discriminate on one format or the other, eventually I will use all of them base on the necessity of the case. If you don't have problems with gif no need to change, on the other end, if there is a special need, go with the format that delivers what you are looking for. Image quality, image size (kb), alpha support etc, all factors greatly effected by each format, just do some tests and see what is the best for you.

 

I really only use .gifs when I do animations. For anything other than that I use .pngs because of the ability for transparencies and the fact they can store layer information for things like Photoshop(this makes the file size go up rather quickly, so I only use this when there are only a few layers).

 

very cool. thanks for the info guys!

So basically the only time I need to be worried is when using PNG with transparency. But any other regular PNG is no problem to display in all browsers.

Thanks! I was a bit worried after reading that article but now I understand

 

Modern-day browsers (FF, IE7, Safari, Opera) all have support for Alpha transparencies in PNG. However, a lot of people still use IE6 which doesnt support such transparencies, so its prudent to create transparent stuff in GIF.