In this post I will explain the WebP file format and what it is used for.
What is the WebP file format
The .webp file format is a file format optimized for lossless compression of images. The file format is preferred by Googles search index service and Google PageSpeed Insight, because of better 
compression. If pictures on your site is smaller, it means faster load time of your blog/website. That is one of the key benefits about this format. The format is developed by On2 Technologies (acquired by Google on February 19, 2010) and was, according to Wikipedia released in late 2010. However, it has been a long under way to be supported by commonly known web browsers and photo programs. The format has been improved over the years and is used more and more and websites and blog today. However, there is still not native support for the format in Windows 10 photo apps. You will have to install a codec or third-party software.
How to open Webp files in Windows 10
For some reason the default Windows 10 Photo app does not yet support .webp files. You can however open WebP files in Microsoft Edge and in Google Chrome. If you have activated the old Windows Photo Viewer in your computer this can in fact also open .Webp files.
Not yet supported in WordPress by standard
The .Webp file format is not supported in WordPress yet. This means that you are not able to upload files in this format in WordPress without doing some tweaks to your WordPress installation. It has something to do with some of the underlying libraries used by WordPress does not support this new format. If you don’t like to do the tweaking yourself there is plugins available to help you. One of them is called WebP Express. Giving the fact that this format was released 10 years ago, it is not easy to say when it will be fully integrated as an supported format like .png and .jpeg.
Browsers that support Webp
Not all browser has support for .Webp files. To see what browser supports the .Webp format check this website
Conclusion about the Webp format
The webp format is a great format that is used to compress images giving faster loading time on website. This is something that is highly appreciated by Googles ranking algorithms. That is why you should consider to implement the webp format for images on your blog or website. The downside is that the format is not yet fully supported by all browsers and image software and neither is it fully supported by WordPress that is the most used CMS in the world.
