How to Enable JPEG XL Support in Google Chrome

This practical guide walks through how to enable JPEG XL support in Google Chrome, explains the main requirements, and highlights common issues that may appear along the way.

1. What is JPEG XL?

JPEG XL is a new raster graphics file format that has been developed to support lossy compression and lossless compression. This image encoding system comes with rich features. JPEG XL specifically helps websites in displaying images better on devices with different screen resolutions.

• JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the organization that designed this format
• X is the name of several JPEG standards since 2000, for example JPEG XT, JPEG XR, JPEG XS.
•  L stands for Long-term, which represents the author's intention for this format to be permanent, with the potential to replace JPEG.

JPEG XL offers significantly better image quality and compression ratio than the old JPEG, and is also shorter in specs. JPEG XL is for algorithmically efficient encoding and decoding, via software, without hardware support, even on mobile devices.

Because of its compression, JPEG XL will reduce the image size by 60% compared to the old JPEG. This allows you to store almost twice the number of photos currently in the drive. In addition, when surfing the web or sharing photos online, you also find that network data traffic is somewhat saved.

2. Enable JPEG XL Support for Google Chrome

Web browsers now support decoding for this new image format, and so does Google Chrome (version 91 and later). By default, support for JPEG XL format is disabled and you can enable it as a flag.

Step 1: Open Google Chrome browser and type chrome://flags/ in the address bar >> Enter.

A flags page will appear, where you can manage the enabling/disabling of experimental features of Google Chrome, including JPEG XL.

Step 2: Type 'JPEG' in the search box at the top of the flags page.

Step 3: You will find the Enable JXL image format entry. To enable it, click the Default button and change it to Enabled.

Step 4: Chrome will ask you to restart the browser for the changes to take effect, click Relaunch.

You have successfully enabled and enabled support for the JPEG XL file format in Chrome. Once enabled, you can check if your browser already supports JPEG XL by visiting here.

If you see a website logo that doesn't say 'Your browser does not support JPEG XL', your browser already supports this new format.

In the future, if you change and want to disable the JPEG XL format, go back to the flags page and select Default under Enabled JXL Image Format. Good luck!