Free webp to jpg
EN
Image MIME Reference
FLIF

Free Lossless Image Format

image/flif
VS

Wireless Bitmap

image/vnd.wap.wbmp
WBMP

A complete technical comparison of Free Lossless Image Format and Wireless Bitmap — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature FLIF WBMP
Transparency (Alpha) Yes ✕ No
Animation Support Yes ✕ No
Progressive Loading Yes ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes ✕ No
Free Lossless Image Format
image/flif
Extension
.flif
Container FLIF Bitstream
Compression Lossless (MANIAC Entropy Coding)
Algorithm
MANIAC (Meta-Adaptive Near-zero Integer Arithmetic Coding)
Color Depth 1-bit to 16-bit (Per Channel), Grayscale, RGB, RGBA, CMYK
Developed by Jon Sneyers and Pieter Wuille (Cloudinary)
Released 2015
Magic Bytes
46 4C 49 46
Full FLIF reference →
Wireless Bitmap
image/vnd.wap.wbmp
Extension
.wbmp
Container WBMP Type 0
Compression Uncompressed
Algorithm
None
Color Depth 1-bit (Monochrome)
Developed by WAP Forum (Now Open Mobile Alliance)
Released 1999
Magic Bytes
00 00
Full WBMP reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser FLIF WBMP
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
FLIF

FLIF Strengths

  • Achieves some of the highest lossless compression ratios ever developed for raster images
  • Incredible progressive decoding allows an image to be highly recognizable even after only 5% of the file has been downloaded
  • Supports animations and complex alpha channels losslessly
Limitations
  • Officially abandoned in favor of JPEG XL
  • Zero native support in web browsers or standard operating system previewers
  • Encoding speed can be significantly slower than standard PNG or WebP compression
WBMP

WBMP Strengths

  • Extremely low processing overhead made it perfectly suited for the ultra-low-power CPUs of late 1990s mobile devices
  • Tightly integrated into the WML (Wireless Markup Language) stack, enabling the first functional mobile internet experiences
Limitations
  • Completely obsolete and lacks support in modern operating systems and browsers
  • Limited entirely to 1-bit black and white (0 for black, 1 for white) with zero support for grayscale, color, or transparency
  • The lack of a strong file header signature makes automated MIME type detection highly unreliable

When to choose which format

FLIF
Use FLIF when…
  • Archival of Uncompressed Image Assets
  • Bandwidth-Constrained Progressive Image Loading (Historical)
  • Medical and Scientific Imaging Storage
WBMP
Use WBMP when…
  • Legacy WML (Wireless Markup Language) Mobile Sites
  • Early Mobile Phone Icons and Operator Logos
  • Historical WAP Archival

More comparisons

FLIF vs ACES → WBMP vs ACES → FLIF vs APNG → WBMP vs APNG → FLIF vs AVCI → WBMP vs AVCI → FLIF vs AVCS → WBMP vs AVCS → FLIF vs AVIF → WBMP vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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