Free webp to jpg
AZV

AirZip Accelerator Image

image/vnd.airzip.accelerator.azv Released 1999 · by AirZip, Inc.

The image/vnd.airzip.accelerator.azv MIME type represents a proprietary image format developed by AirZip, Inc. for their Web Accelerator software. Popular during the dial-up internet era (late 1990s to early 2000s), it heavily compressed standard web images (like JPEG and GIF) on the fly via a proxy server to dramatically speed up page loading times for low-bandwidth users.

Legacy & Proprietary Progressive Production Ready

Technical Specifications

MIME Type
image/vnd.airzip.accelerator.azv
Extensions
.azv
Container
Proprietary AirZip Container
Compression
Lossy (Proprietary) & Lossless (Proprietary)
Algorithms
AirZip Proprietary Compression
Color Depth
8-bit (Indexed), 24-bit (RGB)
Metadata
None
Capabilities
Transparency
Animation
Progressive Loading
Alpha Channel
HDR Support

Magic Bytes & HTTP Headers

File Signature (Magic Bytes)
Unknown (Proprietary)
ASCII: Unknown
HTTP Headers
Content-Type: image/vnd.airzip.accelerator.azv
HTML Accept Attribute
accept="image/vnd.airzip.accelerator.azv, .azv"

Browser Support Matrix

Browser Status Min Version
Chrome Chrome
Not Supported
Firefox Firefox
Not Supported
Safari Safari
Not Supported
Edge Edge
Not Supported
Internet Explorer Internet Explorer
Not Supported Legacy

Advantages & Limitations

Advantages
  • Historically allowed internet users to browse the web up to 5x faster over 56k dial-up modems by drastically reducing image payload sizes
  • Officially registered in the IANA vendor tree, preventing MIME type conflicts on early web proxy servers
Limitations
  • Completely obsolete in the modern broadband era
  • Closed-source and proprietary, meaning no modern image manipulation libraries (like ImageMagick or libvips) can decode it
  • Zero support in standard web browsers

Developer Code Snippets

import magic
print(magic.from_file('compressed.azv', mime=True)) # Will likely default to 'application/octet-stream' due to lack of magic byte rules
const FileType = require('file-type');
const type = await FileType.fromFile('compressed.azv');
console.log(type?.mime); // Standard parsers will not recognize AZV files
import "net/http"
// The standard net/http library cannot detect AZV files internally. You must rely on string matching the .azv extension.
$mime = mime_content_type('compressed.azv');
echo $mime; // Standard server environments will map this to application/octet-stream

File Detection Steps

How to programmatically detect a image/vnd.airzip.accelerator.azv file by reading its raw bytes:

  1. 1 Due to its proprietary nature and obscurity, file detection relies almost entirely on the .azv file extension or examining the HTTP Content-Type header from legacy server logs.

Software Support

A
AirZip Web Accelerator (Legacy)

Share & Embed

Markdown Badge
AZV Format Badge
[![AZV Format](https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/azv/badge.svg)](https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/azv)
Interactive iframe Widget
<iframe src="https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/azv/embed" width="100%" height="280" style="border:1px solid #cbd5e1;border-radius:8px;" title="AZV Specs"></iframe>

JSON API

All data on this page is available as a free, open JSON API. Use it in your project, documentation, or tooling.

GET https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/azv.json Open JSON
Free to use
No auth required
CORS enabled
Use from any domain
Cached 24h
Cache-Control headers set

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an AZV file?

An AZV file is a proprietary compressed image generated by the legacy AirZip Web Accelerator. A proxy server would intercept standard web images, compress them into the AZV format, and send them to the user's AirZip client software to decode, saving bandwidth over slow dial-up connections.

Can I open an image/vnd.airzip.accelerator.azv file today?

No modern web browsers or image viewers support the AZV format natively. Opening it would require the original, obsolete AirZip Web Accelerator client software running on a legacy operating system.

Why does the MIME type start with 'vnd.'?

The 'vnd.' prefix indicates that this is a vendor-specific MIME type officially registered with IANA by a commercial entity (AirZip, Inc.). It ensures that their proprietary software could handle these files without conflicting with standard web MIME types.

Share this format