I might be missing something because I never delved into it, but my problem with WebP is I can't save images this way from my browser. Well, I can save them, but they don't show up when I try to view them on my system (Ubuntu Mate 20.04 on RPi4).
The problem is not the format, but the software / OS you choose to use. There are OS’s that have image format libraries, and once a codec is installed, ALL apps gain the ability to use it. This was first done in the 80’s, so if your Ubuntu 20.04 doesnt support data translations, maybe its time to switch to something else.
That's pretty weird. I'm on Ubuntu 23 and WebP images work the same as JPGs or PNGs.
Browsers like Chrome like to associate themselves with WebP for some weird reason, but file explorers, image editors, album viewers, and everything else support WebP just fine.
I don't know what you use, but I use Nautilus, Gnome Image Viewer, and Pinta/GIMP. Perhaps the three years of improved software support make the difference?
They don't show up on older Windows versions either. The file explorer needs some sort of library to handle .webp thumbnails correctly. I'm pretty sure you can install something on Ubuntu to make them show. Maybe try a different file manager?
In general I've found that this shift to .webp breaks all the nice interoperability and composability we used to have with audio and video image files since there seems to be zero interest in making sure that simple familiar features like still work.
