Add support for WebP file format

[Luxman]

Don't know if this is relevant, but I just inserted a link to a .webp file into a post and it worked.

From this site:

https://www.allgirlannihilation.net/25/anal-for-penelope/

I can insert a link to this picture:

https://www.allgirlannihilation.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/teensloveanal_penelope_woods_015.webp

as in:

Drag and drop or inserting a link does work for me too, but it's a direct link to the image site, so it's not uploaded to Freeones, which is only done by inserting images from our personal hard drives, and it doesn't work with WebP images. I get the error that WebP format isn't allowed.
Isn't direct linking to images on other sites not allowed, unless it's an image hosting site? Many websites prevent it or will disable any direct linking to the images on their websites, or am I wrong?

 

[Torre82]

Depends on the site.
And the admin.
Many sites of an nsfw nature wouldn't mind.
(It's not like we're stealing all that much bandwidth, it isn't the 1990s where they r saving on costs)
But its kind of a random thing. The nsfw sites won't mind and the imagehosting sites get moody and sometimes turn it off for a while. (Imgur)

 

[Luxman]

Why would image hosting sites mind direct linking to the images on their sites. Isn't that the main purpose of image hosting sites?
Plus I thought that it was a rule here on Freeones not to link directly to images on other sites?

 

[DrakeM]

Why would image hosting sites mind direct linking to the images on their sites. Isn't that the main purpose of image hosting sites?
Plus I thought that it was a rule here on Freeones not to link directly to images on other sites?

As I understand it, not a rule but a strong suggestion. I do it all the time, but as I said in another thread, if I direct-link a picture, I ALWAYS include the link to the site where I got it. That way, I'm stealing a little bit of bandwidth but am also driving more eyeballs to the host site which I'm sure the owners would think is a good tradeoff. I agree that direct-linking just a picture with no source URL should be discouraged. I'll also note that in the decade-plus I've been at this, the number of sites that allow direct-linking has grown (quite a lot) and the number of sites preventing it is shrinking.

 

[The Identifier]

This is a subject which kind of branches off in several different directions but a few points to make:

• Hotlinking is not against the rules here but it is not recommended
• WebP files have been embeddable since the latest forum software upgrade as per Connor's post here. As was also stated, this is separate to the file type being supported to actually upload attachments to the board itself. All this means is that if you are linking to an image of that file type that has been uploaded somewhere on the internet; it will be displayed... as long as they haven't prevented hotlinking/bandwidth theft!

Websites can prevent any media to be loaded outside of the domain it is intended for (ie. its own).

They can do this either by applying a blanket block to ANY site outside of its own hosting or they can block specific websites or IP addresses based on what their tracking and analytics is telling them.

Of course, the actual forum user doing the hotlinking is often oblivious to the fact that it might not work for others because they load it through the site it is intended in their browser and they copy and paste the direct link to it. The image will show for them because it is in their browser cache whereas somebody else clicking that same link for the first time may find that it doesn't work when they click it if said originator has either disabled hotlinking altogether or has blocked FreeOnes because multiple users are linking directly to images hosted by them.

In the ID section of this forum, people will often use a hotlinked image for their ID request threads. Other users will reply to it and say it doesn't work to which they will think "what are you talking about? it works for me" which is why this type of thing has to be explained every now and then for anyone who isn't familiar with the concept of hotlinking or what is is or means.

Quite apart from all this though, it is a good idea not to hotlink in general just because if you do, you run the risk of it no longer working later down the line. Even if sites aren't applying blocks, they might move to a different domain or change their URL structure meaning that the links that once worked no longer do. Sure, most links on the internet aren't going to last forever; that's only natural... but if you upload the image to an image host or FreeOnes itself, the chances of it remaining there in the long-term are far greater. Granted, you can't upload WebP format images to FreeOnes, but the benefits of uploading stuff to FreeOnes in general were outlined in another thread recently. Basically, if you upload stuff - it'll stay there unless it is inappropriate content.

Another thing is... supposing you hotlinked to an image and the site in question didn't like it... they could replace the URL of the image which is being linked to with something embarassing like "FreeOnes are a bunch of *****" so that would be what is displayed in posts on the board rather than the original images.

I didn't want this to be quite the essay it turned out to be but hopefully that covers a few bases.

 

[Luxman]

I guess I'll continue to convert images to JPG so I can insert/upload them directly here, until Freeones adds WebP support to the forum.
I also use the extension Save image as Type to right-click and save images of any format as JPG, directly from the website it's on, to my HD.
But the Save image as Type extension doesn't work on the Instagram, and sex.dot.com websites.

 

[The Identifier]

I also use the extension Save image as Type to right-click and save images of any format as JPG, directly from the website it's on, to my HD.
But the Save image as Type extension doesn't work on the Instagram, and sex.dot.com websites.

It's not so much a case of that extension not working on those sites as it is they simply don't allow the right clicking and saving as technique on their images; irrespective of which plugins you might have installed.

This is another thing that some sites do... disable this basic ability. You need to be smarter than the average bear to know how to extract the image, or simply use the Snipping Tool or equivalent/alternative tools depending on which operating system or device you are running. Of course, if people are forced to save a screengrab of it to their hard drive, they are unable to hotlink because they think they can't or they don't know how to, which most people won't. Even if you did know how to get around it, they'd probably have some kind of block in place anyway. But that's only if the reason for a site doing it is because they don't want people to hotlink; it might not be. They just might want to protect their content.

 

[Luxman]

I use another extension that allows me to save any image on any website by holding the ALT key and clicking on the image.

 

[The Identifier]

I don't have any such extensions so I don't know what is and isn't possible, but yeah - I guess that for anyone who doesn't know how to code, the best thing is to use a tool that someone who can has created!

Broadly speaking though, folks won't be aware of or even have the inclination to search for and use such tools.

The simplest way of putting it is that sites can't 100% prevent their images from being downloaded, they can only stop the people who don't understand coding... or haven't been aided by someone who's built a tool to get around it.