Progressive JPEGs. Wondering if I should consider it OR not?

[Malika1]

Hi all,

I am pretty new to the concept of progressive jpegs so don't know much about it.

I believe for a webpage with small images (under 10Kbs) I probably shouldnt worry about progressive jpegs but i do have some images for the size 250+ KBs.

Should I go ahead and turn it into progressive from baseline?

[Mobilio]

Exactly. For small images even it's better to combine them in large image and serve individual as sprites.

But when you have large images - then progressive jpegs is much better (even for mobile users https://code.facebook.com/posts/857662304298232/faster-photos-in-facebook-for-ios/ ). But progressive jpg also have drawbacks - they require little bit more memory and little bit more CPU power for draws. You also can see Patrick Meenan article about that http://blog.patrickmeenan.com/2013/06/progressive-jpegs-ftw.html

Patrick show that only using of progressive jpegs can improve speed index (webpagetest score) between 7% to 15% at same size in bytes.

[Malika1]

Thanks Peter, very helpful!