FAST Search & Transfer Image
image/vnd.fst
Released 2000
· by FAST Search & Transfer ASA (Arild Fuldseth)
The image/vnd.fst MIME type represents a proprietary image format developed by FAST Search & Transfer ASA, a Norwegian technology company founded in 1997 (and later acquired by Microsoft). Registered with IANA in June 2000 by video/image compression researcher Arild Fuldseth, the format was utilized within FAST's early proprietary multimedia streaming and enterprise indexing technologies. Today, the format is entirely obsolete and largely undocumented in the public domain.
Technical Specifications
.fst
Unknown (Proprietary FAST encoding)
Magic Bytes & HTTP Headers
Unknown
Browser Support Matrix
| Browser | Status | Min Version |
|---|---|---|
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Not Supported | — |
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Not Supported | — |
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Not Supported | — |
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Not Supported | — |
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Not Supported | Legacy |
Advantages & Limitations
- Historically served as an optimized, compressed format for FAST's early multimedia and live streaming engines over constrained late-1990s bandwidth
- Completely obsolete and non-functional in modern software ecosystems
- Undocumented, closed-source binary structure with zero support in modern image processing libraries
- Shares its file extension with several other distinct file types (such as FL Studio state files or FAST Search dictionaries), leading to easy misidentification
Developer Code Snippets
File Detection Steps
How to programmatically detect a image/vnd.fst
file by reading its raw bytes:
- 1 Due to its obscurity and proprietary closed-source nature, standard file sniffers lack magic byte definitions for this format.
- 2 Identification relies entirely on string matching the .fst extension against MIME registries, though .fst is occasionally used by other unrelated software applications.
Software Support
Share & Embed
[](https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/fst-image)
<iframe src="https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/fst-image/embed" width="100%" height="280" style="border:1px solid #cbd5e1;border-radius:8px;" title="FST-Image 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/fst-image.json
Open JSON
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an image/vnd.fst file?
It is a proprietary image file created by FAST Search & Transfer ASA, a Norwegian tech company from the late 1990s. The format was designed for their early multimedia compression, indexing, and streaming pipelines before the company pivoted entirely to enterprise search.
Can I open an image/vnd.fst file today?
No. The format is completely obsolete and was never widely adopted outside of FAST's internal enterprise ecosystems. Modern web browsers, operating systems, and image viewers do not support decoding it.
Who created the FST image format?
It was developed by researchers at FAST Search & Transfer ASA (notably Arild Fuldseth) and officially registered with IANA in June 2000. FAST's search technology was later acquired by Microsoft in 2008 to power Microsoft SharePoint's search features.