What is AVIF and why bother?
AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) is the still-image container around the AV1 video codec. It was designed from the ground up to replace JPEG and WebP on the web: better intra prediction, larger block transforms, film-grain synthesis, and native support for 10-bit and 12-bit color. The compression gains are real and visible in benchmarks — Netflix, YouTube, and most large content sites now ship AVIF for users whose browsers can decode it.
Pixshrink uses libavif, which wraps the AV1 encoder (rav1e by default). You get the same codec the big sites use, with a clean in-browser interface.
How much smaller is AVIF in practice?
In a typical product-photo batch, switching from JPEG quality 80 to AVIF quality 50 (perceptually equivalent on SSIM2) cuts the file size by roughly 50%. Switching from a default WebP to AVIF at matched quality typically cuts another 20–30%. For a hero image on a landing page, this is the difference between a 280 KB and a 95 KB load — directly visible in Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse scores.
The speed slider controls the encoder preset. Speed 0 is the slowest and smallest; speed 6 is fast and slightly larger. Speed 4 is a good default for one-off jobs; speed 8 is fine for batch processing.
Browser and tooling support
AVIF is supported in Chrome 85+, Firefox 93+, Edge 121+, and Safari 16+ (released 2022). Coverage of the global web population is now well over 95%. If you need to support older browsers, the right pattern is to ship a <picture> element with a WebP or JPEG fallback — the same page on Pixshrink can produce all three from one upload.
Other formats you might want
For full transparency with zero color shift, PNG lossless is still the safe option. For animations, AVIF supports them but tooling is less mature than GIF and animated WebP — start with animated WebP unless you really need the extra savings.