#HOW TO DOWNLOAD A WEB BROWSER GAME GIF HOW TO#
#HOW TO DOWNLOAD A WEB BROWSER GAME GIF SOFTWARE#
#HOW TO DOWNLOAD A WEB BROWSER GAME GIF SERIES#

#HOW TO DOWNLOAD A WEB BROWSER GAME GIF SERIES#

Historically, the animated GIF could be a static image or series of static images looped continuously, looped only once, or looped as many or as few times as the user desired. And on Reddit, entire subforums arose that were devoted to sharing the perfect reaction GIF or the perfect video moment in GIF form. GIFs could also be easily embedded into the text of Tumblr posts or added to a “reblog” in order to react to an earlier poster’s thoughts. On Tumblr, GIF sets were frequently elaborate, and people used them to tell stories or encapsulate and circulate current news. Reddit, Twitter, and Tumblr launched in 2005, 2006, and 2007 respectively, and each of them played major roles in shifting the culture of social media toward the use of GIFs - especially the image-friendly Tumblr, where GIFs could be uploaded in sets of up to 10 images at once. The modern era: reaction GIFs explode across the internet - and GIFs become an art form unto themselvesĪnd then came the onset of social media, and lo, GIFs were everywhere. These early video-to-GIF viral memes paved the way for the deluge of celebrity reaction GIFs in our future. A classic example: 2007’s “Leave Britney Alone” meme, which gave us a famous proto-reaction GIF: Meanwhile, the advent of YouTube in 2005 had begun to spur the confluence of meme culture with emerging vlogger culture and celebrity culture, and the GIF was there to capture it all.

#HOW TO DOWNLOAD A WEB BROWSER GAME GIF SOFTWARE#

GIF editing was becoming more advanced thanks to the growing accessibility of editing software like Photoshop, and people were beginning to convert video into GIF formats in order to quickly present video images. The combination of fewer legal restrictions on the GIF and a broader, smartphone-boosted demand for a simple, quick, and more lightweight substitute for Flash animation brought the GIF back in a major way. Smartphones, like the iPhone prototype that first appeared in 2005, were beginning to emerge, and their operating systems and early mobile browsers required more portable, lightweight web design and image handling, which would eventually shift the “Web 2.0” movement into an emphasis on responsive cross-platform design.īy 2004, all of the existing patents on licensing for the GIF had expired, and the format essentially entered the public domain. It emphasized less Flash-heavy design, better load times, and more elegant, prettier web pages. Web 2.0 coincided with the advent of Google, Wikipedia, and the first social media platforms - MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, which all debuted between 20. Flash was beginning to falter under the weight of its own clunky load time and the public’s dislike of splash pages - those time-consuming, graphics-heavy “front doors” to websites that would take forever to load and which didn’t always allow you to navigate freely on the corresponding website. Throughout the mid-2000s, the concept of “ Web 2.0” was the reigning approach to web design.

That Under Construction sign, along with many other cute, small animated icons, served as the average human’s introduction to the GIF. The internet was awash in garish designs, thanks to websites with noisy wallpaper backgrounds, Comic Sans font, and the ubiquitous Website Under Construction sign. The early days: the internet was under construction, and so was the GIFĪh, the ‘90s. But as the blog Enthusiasms notes, “the story of how is really the story of the internet growing up.” It’s simultaneously a tale of how the internet’s design evolution impacted the GIF, and one of how the GIF impacted the internet’s design evolution. On the surface, it might sound strange that a file format that has essentially remained unchanged since the ‘90s has managed to outlast so many other kinds of higher-level internet tech, from Flash animation to early JavaScript. (The man who invented the GIF, Steve Wilhite, says it with a soft ‘G,’ like Jif peanut butter, but most people on the internet say it with a hard ‘G,’ because a) it’s more fun, b) it avoids confusion with said brand of peanut butter, and c) come on, it’s Graphical Interchange Format, not Giraffe-ical Interchange Format.)

#HOW TO DOWNLOAD A WEB BROWSER GAME GIF HOW TO#

The question of how to pronounce the word “GIF” has become a rote topic of cultural debate. These days, the GIF is so ubiquitous as a piece of internet culture that it’s got its own offshoot formats like reaction GIFs, GIF art, and Tumblr GIF sets. My, how far we’ve come since those inauspicious beginnings.

The solution: the GIF, a simple, flexible file format for lower-resolution pictures.

Three decades ago, on June 15, 1987, the most beloved image file extension on the internet was birthed by a team of CompuServe developers seeking a way to compress images with minimal data loss. The GIF is officially 30-something, and in the prime of its internet life.

How to download a web browser game gif