Remember the days before PNG, before JPEG, when GIFs loaded several times over? That sure was fun, watching the image get slightly clearer and clearer and then just stop, leaving you wondering about that final level of detail.
Back then of course you'd be opening an image that big & detailed in a separate window, but now we've got some image-heavy websites with dozens of these things. Retina screens don't make things easier, either. Loading 12 pseduo-GIFS in serial would be the mind-killer. My imgur? Facebook?
Serious question: would it be evil for Google to push out an 'educational patch' to Chrome? Firefox probably wouldn't.
They didn't load several times over, they loaded progressively. It was all the same file, but as soon as one level of detail could be displayed, it would - a very sensible optimisation in dial-up days.
Back then of course you'd be opening an image that big & detailed in a separate window, but now we've got some image-heavy websites with dozens of these things. Retina screens don't make things easier, either. Loading 12 pseduo-GIFS in serial would be the mind-killer. My imgur? Facebook?
Serious question: would it be evil for Google to push out an 'educational patch' to Chrome? Firefox probably wouldn't.