Microsoft is finally starting to add support for the AVIF format to Edge. AVIF or AV1 Image File Format is an image encoding based on the AV1 video codec, and just like the AV1 codec, AVIF should provide more efficient encoding compared to more common image formats. For example, Vimeo found that AVIF received a higher Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF) score compared to WebP and JPEG.
Mozilla became the first to support AVIF in its browser when it added support for the feature in Firefox 93 back in October 2021. Google followed in 2022, when Chrome 103 received AVIF image support. Safari soon arrived with version 16.0 on iOS 16.
Twitter user and prolific leaker Leopeva64 managed to get AVIF working on Edge Canary. Hints of change were first noticed at the beginning of the year in February. The leaker posted a screenshot of a demo AVIF test image running on libre-software.net/image/avif-test/ Website.
When running the same test image in the stable version of Edge version 112.0.1722.48, the image switches to JPEG fallback format:
AVIF support is currently not available by default in Edge Canary. Users who wish to enable the feature may be able to do so using the “–enable-features=msEdgeAVIF” command line flag.
However, keep in mind that this is an unfinished feature that is still a work in progress, so it may not work as intended in your browser, and that’s perfectly fine. This means that AVIF support in the final stable version of Edge shouldn’t be too far off now, given that support for the format is coming to Canary.
Source: Leopeva64 (Twitter)