How to Enable JPEG XL (JXL) Support in Chrome

These are instructions on how to enable support for the JPEG XL image format (JXL) in Chrome.

What is JPEG XL (JXL)

JPEG XL is a royalty-free next generation image format that supports both lossy and lossless compression. Developed by Joint Photographic Experts Group and based on ideas from Google's PIK format and Cloudinary's FUIF format, JPEG XL aims to become a universal replacement for common web image formats like JPEG, GIF, and PNG.

JPEG XL Features

1. Improved functionality and efficiency compared to traditional image formats (e.g. JPEG, GIF and PNG),
2. Progressive decoding (by resolution and precision),
3. Lossless JPEG transcoding,
4. Support for both photographic and synthetic imagery,
5. Graceful quality degradation across a large range of bitrates,
6. Perceptually optimized reference encoder,
7. Support for wide gamut and HDR,
8. Support for animated content,
9. Efficient encoding and decoding without requiring specialized hardware.

In terms of compression performance, key results are:
● Lossless JPEG transcoding reduces JPEG size by around 16% to 22%.
● JPEG XL is visually lossless at about half the bitrate required by JPEG.

Existing JPEG files can be losslessly transcoded to JPEG XL files, significantly reducing their size. These can be restored into the exact same JPEG file, ensuring backward compatibility with existing JPEG-based applications. Migrating to JPEG XL will reduce storage costs because servers can store a single JPEG XL file to serve both JPEG and JPEG XL clients.

You can learn more about JPEG XL here.

HOW TO ENABLE JPEG XL (JXL) IN CHROME

Step One

To enable JPEG XL support, open a new browser window in Chrome 91 or higher.

Step Two

Enter chrome://flags/#enable-jxl into the address bar.

Step Three

Change the Enable JXL image format dropdown from Default to Enabled

Step Four

Click the large Relaunch button to apply your changes.

Step Five

Navigate to the JPEG XL Community Art Page to confirm your browser can display JXL images. Congratulations! You've successfully enabled support for the JPEG XL format in Chrome.